CEDAW/C/61/D/24/2009 Optional Protocol, that an application on behalf of the authors and one of X’s sons (and Y’s brother) had been filed before the European Court of Human Rights in March 2007 and that the Court had declared the application inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded and concluded that the facts before it had disclosed no appearance of a violation of the applicants’ rights and freedoms under the European Convention on Human Rights and the protocols thereto. The Committee took note of the State party’s objections concerning the admissibility of the communication. The issue before the Committee was whether the authors’ application before the Court constituted the “same matter” as the communication to the Committee and, if it did, whether the Court had in fact “examined” it. 6.2 The Committee had first to determine whether the same matter as submitted to the European Court of Human Rights was referring to one a nd the same claim of the violation of a particular right concerning the same individual. The Committee therefore needed first to ascertain whether the same matter in the present case related to the same facts, the same individuals and the same substantive rights. 6.3 The Committee noted the State party’s observation that both petitions were “fairly similar, given that the articles relied upon in both cases are substantively similar”. The authors had sought relief under the European Convention on Human Rights under articles 3 (prohibition of torture), 8 (right to respect for private and family life) and 13 (right to an effective remedy), whereas in the current case, the authors had invoked articles 1, 2 (b)-2 (f) and 5 (a) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. According to the State party, to avoid re-examination of already decided disputes, it was necessary to look at the underlying nature of a dispute and not at its formal classification. 6.4 The Committee also noted the authors’ comments that, the similarity of the petitions notwithstanding, the facts pleaded and relied upon before the European Court of Human Rights and before the Committee differed. It recalled that the communication before the Committee was focused on the gender-specific impact of domestic violence and the gender discrimination inherent in the State party’s failure to respond to and prevent violence against women and girls, whereas the application to the Court was focused on the personal impact of the abuse suffered by Y and her brother and on the harm, as a mother unable to protect her children, to X; such distinction was reflected in the differences regarding the parties, the facts and the legal arguments. The authors emphasized that, before the Court, they had not invoked a violation of article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the European Convention on Human Rights. 6.5 The Committee perused the application to the European Court of Human Rights and the pleadings contained therein and noted that, before the Court, the authors had not complained about discrimination, sex -based or otherwise, and had not invoked a violation of article 14 (prohibition of discrimination), whereas discrimination based on sex was at the heart of the communication before the Committee. The application to the Court had focused on the sexual and physical abuse against the two children (Y and her brother, T.), the failure of the State party’s authorities to protect them and to prosecute the perpetrator, and the “moral torture and pain” suffered by X as a mother who “could not manage to protect her children from such kind of actions”. The repeated domestic violence suffered by X from 1996 to 2004 had never been invoked before the Court. X’s son (and second 10/19 15-14358