A. Failure to exhaust domestic remedies in respect of the ban from French territory ordered on 14 March 1994 5.2 Counsel points out that it is scarcely reasonable to maintain that the author, who was arrested on 13 March 1994, sentenced to banishment from French territory the day after, immediately detained with a view to the execution of the sentence, and then forcibly sent back to Zaire on 20 March, had had an opportunity to lodge an appeal. Appeals must be lodged in person with the clerk of the Court of Appeal,e the only exception being that prisoners, i.e. persons sentenced to a term of imprisonment, are given the possibility of entering an official appeal in the prison establishment.f K.N., who had not been sentenced to any term of imprisonment, was detained, first in premises not under the authority of the Prisons Administration, then in the aircraft and then in Zaire. 5.3 It is, moreover, generally acknowledged, on the one hand, that cases before the Paris Court of Appeal take about eight months to come up for a hearing and, on the other hand, that in cases of the present kind, heard by the Twelfth Division of the Court, the penalties are automatically upheld if not increased. In no circumstances could this be regarded as an effective and adequate judicial remedy since, even if it had been materially possible to lodge an appeal, the appeal entailed no stay of execution and would have done nothing to change the forcible execution of the author's banishment from French territory. B. Failure to exhaust domestic remedies after the author's return to France in 1995 5.4 The State party maintains that the author could have submitted an application for asylum to OFPRA, could have requested assignment to a fixed place of residence and has an appeal pending before the Administrative Court. 5.5 No lawyer or association would take the responsibility of advising the author to enter a fresh application for asylum, either in 1995 or nowadays. Doing so would almost automatically lead to the author's expulsion. Under French law, any application by an alien for permission to reside in France (and hence for asylum, a request for asylum being possible and admissible only after residence for that purpose has been authorized by the administration) requires the applicant to go in person to the prefecture, pursuant to article 3 of the decree dated 30 June 1946 as amended and definitively interpreted by the Council of State. That, of course, has a strong deterrent effect since anyone who is not already in possession of residence papers or a residence permit is ipso facto liable to be issued with an immediate deportation order. Thus proceedings to regularize an alien's situation often result in the alien being arrested at the counter in the prefecture, served notice of a deportation order, and deported a few days later. 5.6 The State party wrongly maintains that, before the decree dated 14 March 1997 which prohibits any application for asylum before the prefect has granted permission to reside in France, nothing prevented the author from approaching OFPRA. Before the decree, any fresh application from an asylum-seeker who had been once refused was considered inadmissible because it conflicted with a previous final decision: the ipso facto result was the deportation of the applicant. Thus, when the author submitted a second application for asylum in March 1993 the only concrete result was the issue in the following few days of the customary deportation order and a decision to expel him to Zaire on 15 April 1993. Only following the rulings by the e Code of Penal Procedure, article 502. f Ibid., article 503. 171