Seeking Remedies for Torture Victims: A Handbook on the Individual Complaints Procedures of the UN Tready Bodies for victims of grave human rights violations should be suitable to effectively pursue the prosecution, trial and punishment of those responsible for such violations.126 The case Maharjan v. Nepal may serve to illustrate this point. The author was subjected to constant acts of torture and ill-treatment during his 10-month incommunicado detention for his alleged ties with the Maoists (Communist Party). At the admissibility stage, the State party contended that the Compensation relating to Torture Act 1996, which provided for a maximum compensation of 100,000 Nepalese rupees, offered a legal remedy in cases of torture and claimed that the author had not availed himself of this mechanism. Examining the appropriateness of the mentioned remedy for the purpose of the exhaustion of domestic remedies requirement, the HRC held that “to sue for damages for offenses as serious as those alleged in the present case cannot be considered a substitute for the charges that should be brought by the authorities against the alleged perpetrators”;127 for this reason, coupled with other shortcomings, the HRC found the State party’s remedies ineffective.128 In this context, the Committees are often more lenient with regard to the need to exhaust administrative remedies, as the quality and nature of such remedies vary widely across States. The relevance of an administrative remedy to the domestic remedies rule will depend in each case on its perceived effectiveness. The Committees are not likely to require the exhaustion of highly unusual or “extraordinary” remedies which are outside the mainstream of the relevant State’s justice system.129 Administrative remedies will be deemed ineffective, meaning a person does not have to exhaust them, if they are discretionary.130 For example, in Singarasa v. Sri Lanka the failure to seek a presidential pardon in respect of a long prison sentence was not a domestic remedy that needed to be exhausted in order for the complaint to be admissible.131 In Katsaris v. Greece, contesting the State party’s argument that the author did not file a special remedy in the form of an appeal to the Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal, the HRC ascertained that this was not an effective remedy given its extraordinary nature, as defined in the Criminal Procedure Court, and that it was carried out without party testimonies.132 126 See HRC, Berzig v. Algeria, Comm. No. 1781/2008, para. 7.4. 127 HRC, Maharjan v. Nepal, Comm. No. 1863/2009, para. 7.6. See also HRC, Benaziza v. Algeria, Comm. No. 1588/2007, para. 8.3. 128 HRC, Maharjan v. Nepal, Comm. No. 1863/2009, para. 7.8. 129 HRC, Muhonen v. Finland, Comm. No. (89/1981.81). See also Nowak, M., U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary, 2nd edition, N.P. Engel (2005) (hereinafter, Nowak (2005)), pp. 886–888. 130 See, e.g., HRC, Umarova v. Uzbekistan, Comm. No. 1449/2006, para. 7.3. 131 HRC, Singarasa v. Sri Lanka, Comm. No. 1033/01, para. 6.4. 132 HRC, Katsaris v. Greece, Comm. No. 1558/07, para. 6.4. 62