CCPR/C/127/D/2912/2016 State party’s observations 4.1 In a note verbale dated 23 May 2018, the State party contests the admissibility of the communication. Referring to article 1 of the Optional Protocol to the Covenant, the State party submits that as a successor of the Soviet Union, it has been a party to the Covenant since 23 March 1976. The events in the Katyn forest took place in 1940, almost 36 years before the Covenant took effect for the State party and more than 26 years before the Covenant was adopted in 1966. 4.2 The State party considers that the authors are not under the jurisdiction of the State party and cannot therefore file a complaint to the Committee, as established by article 1 of the Optional Protocol. 4.3 Referring to the conclusion of the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Janowiec and others v. Russia concerning the lack of the Court’s temporal jurisdiction, the State party submits that the lapse of time between the alleged death of the authors’ relatives and the date of entry into force of the Covenant for the State party is not only many times longer than the periods which trigger procedural obligations under article 6 of the Covenant, but is also too long in absolute terms for a genuine connection to be established between the death of the applicants’ relatives and the entry into force of the Covenant in respect of the State party. 4.4 In addition, the State party denies that the procedural obligation under article 6 of the Covenant exists, in view of the fact that the investigation in relation to the Katyn case was carried out as a gesture of political goodwill by the State party and therefore cannot be assessed from the point of procedural requirements of article 6. Only events that took place after the adoption of the Covenant could give rise to procedural obligations; an investigation carried out 50 years after the events of 1940, when the victims were long dead and the most important documents destroyed, could not have been effective and certainly could not be after 70 years. 4.5 The State party asserts that the absence of its responsibility for violation of the material part of article 6 excludes the possibility of consideration of its responsibility for a possible violation of the procedural part of article 6. 4.6 The State party notes that the preliminary investigation in the Katyn case was not carried out in order to elucidate the circumstances of the death of the authors’ relatives, but to establish the responsibility of the NKVD officials who were responsible for the deaths of prisoners in NKVD camps several decades earlier. The criminal case was opened and then closed. By that time, the statute of limitations for the crimes had expired. The State party did not open a criminal case concerning the death of the authors’ relatives because of lack of sufficient evidence of their death, since their remains had not been located. The authors had not requested the opening of a criminal case concerning the death of their relatives either from the Soviet authorities, or from the authorities of the State party. In considering the authors’ claims, the domestic courts found that the evidence was insufficient to conclude that the authors’ relatives had died as a result of abuse of power by NKVD officials. The State party concludes that it could not have positive obligations under article 6 of the Covenant because the fact of the death of the authors’ relatives had not been proven and the statute of limitations for the crimes in question had expired. 4.7 In view of the above, the investigating authorities had no grounds under article 42 of the Criminal Procedure Code, to give victim status to the authors and to grant them access to the investigation documents. 4.8 The State party concludes that the authors’ claim under article 6 should be found inadmissible for lack of substantiation under article 2 of the Optional Protocol. 4.9 The State party addresses the authors’ claim that the way the authorities treated them during and after the investigation of the Katyn case was humiliating and inhuman and amounted to a violation of article 7 of the Covenant. The State party submits that in order to trigger a question of a violation of article 7 of the Covenant, two elements are needed: the authors should have been unaware of the fate of their relatives during a certain period of time; and the actions of the State party should have augmented their suffering during that period. Regarding the first element, although the fate of the authors’ relatives could not be determined with certainty for purposes of criminal or rehabilitation proceedings, there was no basis to expect that by 1 January 1992 (the date of adoption by the State party of the 5