The victims of serious violations committed by the Marcos regime brought an action for damages in the United States in 1986. After obtaining a favourable judgment before the US courts in 1996, the victims sought to enforce the judgment in the Philippines. However, enforcement has been significantly delayed on the technicality of court fees. The victims challenged these delays before the UN Human Rights Committee, which adopted its views on the case in April 2007. It set out the facts as follows: “2.5 On 20 May 1997, five class members, including the third author, filed a complaint against the Marcos estate, in the Regional Trial Court of Makati City, Philippines, with a view to obtaining enforcement of the United States judgment. The defendants counter filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that the PHP 400 (US$ 7.20) paid by each plaintiff was insufficient as the filing fee. On 9 September 1998, the Regional Trial Court dismissed the complaint, holding that the complainants had failed to pay the filing fee of PHP 472 million (US$ 8.4 million), calculated on the total amount in dispute (US$ 2.2 billion). On 10 November 1998, the authors filed a motion for reconsideration before the same Court, which was denied on 28 July 1999. 2.6. On 4 August 1999, the five class members filed a motion with the Philippine Supreme Court, on their own behalf and on behalf of the class, seeking a determination that the filing fee was PHP 400 rather than PHP 472 million. By the time of submission of the communication to the Committee (11 October 2004), the Supreme Court had not acted on this motion, despite a motion for early resolution filed by the petitioners on 8 December 2003… 4. On 12 May 2005, the State party submitted that the communication is inadmissible for failure to exhaust domestic remedies. It submits that, on 14 April 2005, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Mijares et al. v. Hon. Ranada et al., affirming the authors' claim that they should pay a filing fee of PHP 410 rather than PHP 472 million with respect to their complaint to enforce the judgment of the United States District Court in Hawaii. The State party denies that the authors were not afforded an effective remedy.”167 The UN Human Rights Committee found that the length of proceedings in the case of enforcing the US judgment had violated the right to equality before the Courts and the right to an effective remedy: “the Committee recalls that the right to equality before the courts, as guaranteed by article 14, paragraph 1, entails a number of requirements, including the condition that the procedure before the national tribunals must be conducted expeditiously enough so as not to compromise the principle of fairness. [footnote omitted] It notes that the Regional Trial Court and Supreme Court spent eight years and three hearings considering this subsidiary issue and that the State party has provided no reasons to explain why it took so long to consider a matter of minor complexity. For this reason, the Committee considers that the length of time taken to resolve this issue was unreasonable, resulting in a violation of the authors' rights under article 14, paragraph 1, read in conjunction with article 2, paragraph 3, of the Covenant.”168 167 Pimentel et. al. v. The Philippines, paras.2.4, 2.5., 2.6. and 4. 168 Ibid., para.9.2. 36