5.1In a letter dated 27 October 2000, the complainant submitted his comments regarding the State party’s observations on the admissibility of the complaint. 5.2The complainant maintains first of all that he availed himself of the opportunity to apply for a judicial review of the decision by which he was denied refugee status, that being the last remedy in all of the proceedings which he had pursued, and had addressed the very substance of the claims made in support of his request for asylum. The subsequent appeals and remedies had concerned only matters of procedure. 5.3The complainant also states that his application for a judicial review of the decision rejecting the PDRCC application was based on the same arguments as that which could have been made against the decision on his humanitarian status and points out that the two proceedings were concurrent. He therefore considers that applying for a judicial review of the decision on his humanitarian status would have made little sense because the Federal Court would certainly not have decided otherwise than in the other proceeding. 5.4The procedure to include a person in PDRCC class and the request for humanitarian status are not, according to the complainant, valid remedies in international law because they are entirely discretionary. Likewise, judicial reviews made where applicable by the Federal Court are also not valid under international law because they cannot give rise to a final decision and the case must be referred back to the administrative authorities for a new decision. Furthermore, following its consistent practice, the Federal Court deals not with questions of fact, which are to be determined entirely at the discretion of the administrative authorities, but only with the observance of such principles as must guide the administrative proceedings. 5.5The complainant refers in this connection to the reasons why domestic remedies must be exhausted under article 22 of the Convention. He submits that the domestic remedies to be exhausted cannot be incapable of offering any chance of success. This applies, according to the complainant, to the judicial review in question, since the practice whereby the review deals only with matters of procedure and not with the facts or the law is particularly well established in the Federal Court of Canada. An application for a judicial review to show that a person runs a real risk of being tortured in the country to which the authorities wish to return him therefore has no chance of success. 5.6According to the complainant, the remedies to be exhausted are those which make it possible to establish, where appropriate, the violation of the right invoked. Thus, the application for asylum and the ensuing application for a judicial review, notwithstanding the doubt as to its effectiveness, as discussed above, are remedies that, in the complainant’s view, have to be exhausted. By contrast, the complainant maintains that the application for humanitarian status and any ensuing application for a judicial review are not remedies which must be exhausted because, even if, in some cases, it is justified to make use of extraordinary remedies, this cannot be the rule for an entirely discretionary remedy such as the application for humanitarian status. The complainant refers in this connection to C. Amerasinghe (Local Remedies in International Law, p. 63), according to whom it is not necessary to make use of an extraordinary remedy if it is only discretionary and non-judicial, as in the case of those whose purpose is to obtain a favour and not to claim a right. Now, it has been established, and is not contested by the State party, that the purpose of the application for humanitarian status is not to secure a right, but, rather, to obtain a favour from the Canadian State; this point has, moreover, been emphasized on many occasions by the Federal Court. 5.7Applications for a judicial review of discretionary decisions like those following a request for humanitarian status are no more effective, even when the Federal Court examines the merits of the case. The complainant illustrates this contention with reference to a similar case, where the decision on an application for humanitarian status had been the subject of a judicial review in which the Federal Court had found that the person concerned was indeed at risk of being subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment. Being unable to take a final decision in such a proceeding, however, the Federal Court had had to refer the case back to the administrative authority, which took a new decision that was contrary to the Federal Court’s findings and refused to grant humanitarian status. The complainant considers that the fiction of the judicial review is thereby demonstrated all the more clearly. 5.8Deeming that he has shown the inadequacy and ineffectiveness of the remedies which he is reproached with not having employed, the complainant then submits to the Committee his contention that the State party has not assumed the burden of proof necessary for it to establish that effective domestic remedies are still available. He refers in this connection to the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in the Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras case, according to which it is for the State which contests the exhaustion of all remedies to prove that there are remedies still to be exhausted and that those remedies are effective. The complainant, therefore, suggests that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has transferred the burden of proof of the exhaustion of all remedies from the complainant to the State. He observes that this is also the case law applied by the Human Rights Committee, which requests the State, in addition to giving details of the remedies available, to provide evidence that there is a reasonable chance of those remedies being effective. In the complainant’s view, that should also be the approach of the Committee against Torture. 5.9After making a more general criticism of the State party’s regulations concerning refugees and of the procedures relating thereto, the complainant submits that he has offered proof of his rights and of the risks facing him if returned to Honduras. 5.10In conclusion, the complainant considers that the rule of the exhaustion of domestic remedies should be interpreted with reference to the objectives of the Convention against Torture. In this connection, he emphasizes that this principle is furthermore applied by the European Court of Human Rights, which has expressly stated that the European Convention on Human Rights should be interpreted with reference to its ultimate objective of ensuring the effective protection of human rights. 5.11In a letter dated 18 April 2001, the complainant indicates that on 1 November 2000 he finally decided to submit an application to the Federal Court for a judicial review of the decision not to grant him humanitarian status. However, the court rejected the application for a judicial review on 2 March 2001. Therefore, while maintaining the arguments he set forth previously concerning the principle of the exhaustion of domestic remedies, the complainant considers that the arguments originally put forward by the State party are no longer an obstacle to the admissibility of his complaint. The Committee’s decision on admissibility