CAT/C/32/D/214/2002 Page 7 5.2 The complainant submits that the constitutional complaint is not an additional appeal but constitutes an extraordinary remedy, allowing the Constitutional Court to determine whether basic rights have been infringed by the lower courts, when these fail to comply with their duty to ensure the enjoyment of such basic rights. However, the questions whether the requirement to exhaust all available domestic remedies includes recourse to this specific remedy, and whether this requirement is not met if a constitutional complaint is rejected as inadmissible, is immaterial in the complainant’s opinion, since his constitutional complaint was not declared inadmissible by the Federal Constitutional Court in the first place. 5.3 The complainant argues that compliance with specific particularities of the German Constitution is not a prerequisite to lodge a complaint under a universal treaty-based procedure, such as the individual complaint procedure under article 22 of the Convention. 5.4 Lastly, the complainant submits that the domestic remedies rule must be applied with a certain degree of flexibility, and that only effective remedies must be exhausted. In the absence of a suspensive effect, the constitutional complaint cannot be considered an effective remedy in cases of imminent deportation. Additional observations by the State party on admissibility 6.1 On 10 March 2003, the State party submitted its additional observations on the admissibility of the complaint. While conceding that the Federal Constitutional Court did not explicitly state whether the constitutional complaint was inadmissible or illfounded, the State party reiterates that the wording of the operative part of the Federal Constitutional Court’s decision of 30 August 2002 allowed the inference that the complainant’s constitutional complaint was unsubstantiated and therefore inadmissible. Hence, the complainant failed to comply with the procedural requirements for lodging a constitutional complaint. 6.2 The State party objects to the complainant’s argument that a constitutional complaint has no suspensive effect, arguing that such effect can be substituted by means of an urgent application for interim relief, under Section 32 of the Federal Constitutional Court Act. Decision on admissibility 7.1 At its thirtieth session, the Committee considered the question of the admissibility of the complaint and ascertained that the same matter had not been, and was not being, examined under another procedure of international investigation or settlement. Insofar as the State party argued that the complainant had failed to exhaust domestic remedies, since his constitutional complaint did not meet the procedural requirements as to the substantiation of the claims, the Committee considered that, as an international instance which supervises States parties’ compliance with their obligations under the Convention, it is not in a position to pronounce itself on the specific procedural requirements governing the submission of a constitutional complaint to the Federal Constitutional Court, unless such a complaint is manifestly