Seeking Remedies for Torture Victims: A Handbook on the Individual Complaints Procedures of the UN Tready Bodies rulings on the justification for each author’s detention during the lengthy proceedings involved”.157 In Arzuaga Gilboa v. Uruguay, the HRC stated that “effective” remedies include “procedural guarantees for a fair and public hearing by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal”.158 In this respect, the Committees have recognized that the pursuit of domestic remedies in certain circumstances under certain tyrannical regimes are likely to be futile. The rule of law may simply not apply under such regimes; courts are usually not independent, and may simply act as rubber stamps for governments.159 Equally, in situations of conflict and mass violations remedies are often ineffective. It remains, however, fundamental to substantiate the lack of effectiveness of such remedies and where possible, complainants are advised to seek their exhaustion first. Furthermore, one is not required to exhaust domestic remedies if they are rendered unavailable because it is dangerous to pursue them. In Phillip v. Jamaica, the HRC held that due to the complainant’s fear of the prison authorities, he was not required to alert these authorities to the poor conditions in detention.160 In Avadanov v. Azerbaijan, the author had not raised torture allegations before the domestic authorities and courts for well-founded fears of life-threatening reprisals against him, his wife and his daughter. The Committee declared that the complaint was admissible, in spite of the non-exhaustion of domestic remedies, due to the threats faced by the author, which were liable to result in his and his family’s further victimization, thereby considering that domestic remedies in Azerbaijan were “ineffective and unavailable” for the complainant.161 It remains vital to substantiate claims very carefully to reduce the risk that the Committee will dismiss the complaint. If the highest domestic tribunal in the land has made a decision in a case where the facts are very similar to those in the relevant case, and if that higher court decision eliminates any prospect of success of an appeal to the domestic courts, complainants will not be required to exhaust that domestic remedy. In Pratt and Morgan v. Jamaica, the complainants claimed that their execution after a long period of time on death row would breach their ICCPR rights. They argued that an appeal to the Supreme Court of Jamaica would inevitably fail due to a prior decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the highest court in the Jamaican legal system, 157 HRC, F.K.A.G. et al. v. Australia, Comm. No. 2094/2011, paras. 8.3–8.4. 158 HRC, Arzuaga Gilboa v. Uruguay, Comm. No. 147/1983, para. 7.2. 159 Joseph and Castan (2013), para. 6.20; see also Giffard, C., The Torture Reporting Handbook, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex (2000), p. 81. 160 HRC, Phillip v. Jamaica, Comm. No. 594/1992, para. 6.4. See the Model Complaint, Textbox iii, para. 18. 161 HRC, Khilal Avadanov v. Azerbaijan, Comm. No. 1633/2007, para. 6.4. See also HRC, Traoré v. Côte d’Ivoire, Comm. No. 1759/2008, para. 6.5. 68