PART 2: How to Bring a Case to the Court killing notwithstanding an ex officio obligation under domestic law to do so. The applicant subsequently – by pure coincidence – found out that her husband had been killed by the village guards and asked the prosecutor to mount a prosecution. Her request was rejected, the prosecutor stating that although it was established that her husband had been killed by the village guards, it was not possible to establish which one of the four village guards had fired the fatal shot. The applicant did not avail herself of the opportunity to appeal the prosecutor’s decision and instead applied directly to the Court in Strasbourg. In its decision declaring the application inadmissible, the Court held by a majority, that although the decision not to prosecute the four named village guards suggested that the clear wording of domestic legislation on joint enterprises in the commission of the offence of homicide had been disregarded by the prosecutor, the applicant could have brought this issue to the attention of the appeal judge and thus could have substantially increased her prospects of success. The applicant had not shown, therefore, that an appeal would have been devoid of any chance of success.448 In jurisdictions where the commission of the offence of ill-treatment gives rise to an ex officio duty of the investigating authorities to investigate the incident without waiting for the victim to lodge a formal complaint, the victim may be required to co-operate with the authorities by assisting them, for example, in identifying and locating eye-witnesses. The conduct of the applicant in exhausting domestic remedies may therefore also play a role in the Court’s examination of the question as to whether those remedies have been exhausted. ii. Civil and Administrative Remedies In its judgment in the case of Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria the Court found that the applicant had exhausted all the possibilities available to him within the criminal justice system, as he had made numerous appeals to the prosecuting authorities at all levels, requesting a full criminal investigation into the allegations of ill-treatment carried out by police and requesting that the officers concerned be prosecuted. In the absence of a criminal prosecution in connection with his complaints, the applicant was therefore not required to embark upon another attempt to obtain redress by bringing a civil action for damages.449 In reaching this conclusion, 448 Compare to İlhan v. Turkey [GC], no. 22277/93, 27 June 2000, § 63, where the investigating authorities had remained totally passive in investigating the circumstances of the severe ill-treatment to which soldiers had subjected the applicant’s brother. The Grand Chamber, in rejecting the Government’s objection to the admissibility of the case, held that the matter had been sufficiently brought to the attention of the relevant domestic authority, which had an ex officio obligation to investigate the circumstances of the ill-treatment without waiting for a formal complaint from the applicant. 449 See Assenov and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 24760/94, 28 September 1998, § 86. 127