CCPR/C/113/D/2013/2010 registration of the communication. If the State party wants to challenge the admissibility of the communication, it should do so within the existing procedures. By rejecting the Committee’s right to register new communications, the State party violates its obligations under article 1 of the Optional Protocol. 5.2 Regarding the submission of new communications by “third parties”, counsel, on behalf of the author, submits that at the time of the registration of the communication, Oleg Grishkovtsov was being held on death row in Minsk. Therefore, he hired counsel to represent him, in accordance with the power of attorney submitted with the initial communication to the Committee. The State party’s concern regarding some “third party” is baseless. The present communication is clearly admissible and should be considered by the Committee on its merits. 5.3 Regarding the State party’s failure to comply with the Committee’s request for interim measures of protection, counsel considers that it constitutes a flagrant violation of the State party’s obligations under the Optional Protocol. Counsel invites the Committee to recommend amendments in the Belarusian legislation, so that the State party respects the Committee’s requests for interim measures. Issues and proceedings before the Committee The State party’s lack of cooperation and failure to respect the Committee’s request for interim measures 6.1 The Committee notes the State party’s assertion that there are no legal grounds for consideration of the present communication insofar that the State party has no obligation to recognize the Committee’s rules of procedure or the Committee’s interpretation of the provisions of the Optional Protocol; and that it has no obligation to respect the request by the Committee for interim measures. 6.2 The Committee recalls that under article 39 (2) of the Covenant, it is empowered to establish its own rules of procedure, which States parties have agreed to recognize. It further observes that, by adhering to the Optional Protocol, a State party to the Covenant recognizes the competence of the Committee to receive and consider communications from individuals subject to its jurisdiction claiming to be victims of violations of any of the rights set forth in the Covenant (preamble and art. 1 of the Optional Protocol). Implicit in a State’s adherence to the Optional Protocol is an undertaking to cooperate with the Committee in good faith so as to permit and enable it to consider such communications and, after examination thereof, to forward its Views to the State party and to the individual concerned (art. 5 (1 and 4)). It is incompatible with its obligations under article 1 of the Optional Protocol for a State party to take any action that would prevent or frustrate the Committee in its consideration and examination of the communication and in the expression of its Views.6 6.3 In the present case, the Committee observes that, when submitting the communication on 6 December 2010, the author informed the Committee that he had been sentenced to death and that the sentence could be carried out at any time. On the same date, the Committee transmitted to the State party a request not to carry out the death sentence while the case was under examination by the Committee. On 14 April 2011, the Committee reiterated its request. On 20 July 2011, the Committee received information that the author had been executed, despite its request for interim measures of protection. The Committee 6 6 See, inter alia, communications No. 869/1999, Piandiong et al. v. the Philippines, Views adopted on 19 October 2000, para. 5.1; and Nos. 1461/2006, 1462/2006, 1476/2006 and 1477/2006, Maksudov et al. v. Kyrgyzstan, Views adopted on 16 July 2008, paras. 10.1–10.3.