Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights: A Practitioner’s Handbook is separate from that of its member States and is not a contracting party to the European Convention. Thus the Court is not competent ratione personae to review its acts. d) Incompatibility Ratione Materiae For a complaint to be compatible ratione materiae with the Convention, the right relied on by the applicant must be protected by the Convention and the Protocols. In contrast, complaints about rights that are clearly not covered by the Convention as well as rights that are found not to fall within the scope of the Convention articles are declared inadmissible. Cases involving Article 3 of the Convention declared inadmissible ratione materiae are rare. An indication as to what kinds of Article 3 complaints are incompatible ratione materiae is the case of Budina v. Russia.411 The applicant in this case alleged that her old-age pension was insufficient to maintain and adequate standard of living. Although the Court reiterated that the “mere fact that an interpretation of the Convention may extend into the sphere of social and economic rights” does not render a complaint incompatible ratione materiae, the Court declared the application inadmissible because the applicant failed to substantiate concrete suffering. Thus the Court concluded that the high threshold of Article 3 had not been met. Consequently, an Article 3 complaint might be incompatible ratione materiae if the threshold for torture or ill-treatment is not met.412 Having said this, it is important to note that the Convention is understood as a living instrument and its scope has consistently been developed. This means that complaints that do not fall within the scope of the Convention right today might do so in the future. 2.2.4 Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies (Article 35 § 1) a) General Rules According to Article 35 § 1, the Court “may only deal with the matter after all domestic remedies have been exhausted, according to the generally recognised rules of international law […].” Applicants thus must exhaust domestic remedies before they can complain before the Strasbourg Court.413 This means that applicants must avail themselves of the normal avenues of judicial relief that exist in the national system and they must have appealed their case to the highest instance possible within that system.414 411 Budina v. Russia (dec.), no. 45603/05, 18 June 2009. 412 Ibid. 413 See generally Cesare P. R. Romano, “The Rule of Prior Exhaustion of Domestic Remedies: Theory and Practice in International Human Rights Procedures”, in Nerina Boschiero, Tullio Scovazzi, Cesare Pitea and Chiara Ragni (eds.), International Courts and the Development of International Law, Springer, 2013, pp. 561–572. 414 See Akdıvar and Others v. Turkey, no. 21893/93, 16 September 1996, § 66. 120