CCPR/C/116/D/2402/2014
substantiation of the allegations as will constitute a prima facie case”.f States parties have
understood this to be the standard, g and at times have treated it as equivalent to the
“manifestly ill-founded” standard applied by the European Court of Human Rights h and our
sister treaty bodies.i
6.
Reasonable minds perhaps may differ over whether the situation of the authors in
this case is distinguishable from that in Ali et al. and Jasin et al.. But their circumstances
are far too similar for the claim here to be inadmissible for lack of substantiation. It is
untenable to contend that the claims in Ali et al. and Jasin et al. were admissible and
established a violation of article 7, but that the authors’ claims here fail to even state a
prima facie case. Nor does the Committee provide the reader with any meaningful
justification for the radically different outcome here. An inadmissibility determination is
particularly inappropriate given that under Committee procedures, cases considered
inadmissible by the working group are discussed by the plenary only upon the affirmative
request of a Committee member.j For all of these reasons, we believe this case should have
been deemed admissible and decided on the merits.
f
g
h
i
j
GE.16-10167
See the report of the Human Rights Committee (A/39/40(SUPP) and corr. 1 and 2), para. 588.
See para. 4.1 of the present decision, alleging that the authors failed to establish a prima facie case for
admissibility. See also communications No. 2272/2013, P.T. v. Denmark, Views adopted 1 April
2015, para. 4.1; No. 1544/2007, Hamida v. Canada, Views adopted 18 March 2010, para. 4.3; No.
2186/2012, Mr. X and Ms. X v. Denmark, Views adopted 22 Oct. 2014, para. 4.2; and Yogesh Tyagi,
The UN Human Rights Committee Practice and Procedure (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,
2011), p. 463 (“in effect, the submission must constitute a prima facie case”).
The European Convention on Human Rights states that “the Court shall declare inadmissible any
individual application … if it considers that the application is … manifestly ill-founded” (art. 35 (3)).
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women states that “the Committee shall declare a communication inadmissible where … it is
manifestly ill-founded or not sufficiently substantiated” (art. 4 (2) (c)); the same is indicated in the
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (art. 2 (e)) and in the
Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (art. 3 (2)
(e)); and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
considers requests for urgent action that are “not manifestly unfounded” (art. 30 (2) (a)). States have
used both the “prima facie” and “manifestly ill-founded” standards. Compare Jasin et al. v. Denmark,
para. 4.1 above, arguing that the communication was “manifestly ill-founded”; Ali et al. v. Denmark,
para. 4.1 above, arguing the same point; and communication No. 2149/2012, M.I. v Sweden, Views
adopted 25 July 2013, para. 4.3, in which the State party argues that the communication is “manifestly
unfounded”. See also J. Th. Möller and A. de Zayas, The United Nations Human Rights Committee
Case Law, 1977-2008: A Handbook (Kehl/Strasbourg, N. P. Engel Verlag, 2009), p. 91 (“the [Human
Rights Committee’s] ‘insufficient substantiation ground’ has become synonymous with the
‘manifestly ill-founded’ ground in other international procedures”).
See rule 93 (3) of the Committee’s rules of procedure.
17
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