4 l) The Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago provides for an Advisory Committee on the Power of Pardon, which is charged with considering and making recommendations to the Minister of National Security as to whether an offender sentenced to death ought to benefit from the President’s discretionary power of pardon under the said Constitution. No criteria are prescribed in law for the exercise of the Committee’s functions or the President’s discretion, and the offender has no legal right to make submissions to the Committee to present, receive or challenge evidence the Committee chooses to take into account. The exercise of the power of pardon is an act of clemency that is not matter of legal right, and therefore not subject to judicial review. III PROCEEDING BEFORE THE COMMISSION 3) Between January and May 1999, the Commission received seven petitions from various British law firms (hereinafter “the petitioners”) on behalf of seven alleged victims whose rights were alleged to have been violated by the State. The Commission began the proceedings of the cases that are the subject of this application on various dates between May and June of 1999, subsequently it opened cases 12,148; 12,149; 12,151; 12,152; 12,153; 12,156 and 12,157, and transmitted the pertinent parts of the petitions to the State, and requested a reply. 4) The Commission received responses from the State in the cases 12,149 (Krishendath Seepersad) and 12,151 (Allan Phillip) on August 6 and 18, 1999, respectively; and in the remaining five cases (12,148; 12,152; 12,153; 12,156 and 12,157) the State did not provide the Commission with any observation respecting the petitions. In the two cases in which the State delivered a response, the Commission decided to transmit the pertinent parts to the petitioners pursuant to Article 34(7) of its Rules of Procedure and requested their comments. 5) In case 12,149 (Krishendath Seepersad), the petitioners delivered comments on the State’s response. Further, in case 12,151 (Allan Phillip), the Commission received supplementary materials from the petitioners. The Commission transmitted the communications to the State, and requested a reply. The State did not deliver a response to these supplementary materials. 6) On June 13, 2000, the Commission adopted Report No. 53/00, in accordance with Article 50 of the Convention, and transmitted it to the State on July 5 of the same year. In the report, the Commission determined the admissibility and merits of the seven cases and, in the operative part of the Report, recommended that the State2: 1. Grant the victims in Cases Nos. 12,149 (Krishendath Seepersad), 12,151 (Allan Phillip), 12,152 (Narine Sooklal), 12,153 (Amir Mowlah), 12,156 (Mervyn Parris), and 12,157 (Francis Mansingh) an effective remedy which includes commutation of sentence and compensation; 2 In the five cases in which the State did not deliver any observations (12,148; 12,152; 12,153; 12,156 and 12,157), the Commission applied Article 42 of its Rules of Procedure in determining the admissibility and merits of the cases, presuming the facts reported in the petitions to be true, “provided that the evidence in each case did not lead to a different conclusion”.