CAT/C/67/D/857/2017 Advance unedited version 5.4 The State party rejects the complainant’s claim that it breached the principle of division of authority by telling the courts to complete the proceedings before one year term for detention of the complainant expires. It notes that in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code of Serbia, there are other measures besides detention to secure presence of a person in extradition proceedings. 5.5 With regard to the Republic of Turkey and its violation of human rights, the State party submits that it included Turkey in the list of safe countries of origin and safe third countries. It further notes that Croatia and Bulgaria also consider Turkey to be a safe country of origin, and it has been proposed to put Turkey in the joint list of the European Union of safe countries of origin. Moreover, the State party explicitly conditioned the extradition in its decision with the Turkey’s obligation to respect all human rights and freedoms of the complainant, as provided by the appropriate international conventions. 5.6 The State party submits that the Ministry of Interior is the national authority in charge of extradition procedures, and the Ministry of Justice usually receives information about extraditions only after their completion. 5.7 The State party notes that with regard to the complainant’s asylum proceedings, the decision of the Asylum Commission is not considered to be final and can be further appealed. 5.8 As to the complainant’s claim that the State party has ignored the request for interim measures by the Committee, the State party notes that it has learned about the request on 18 December 2017 only, i.e. three days after the decision on extradition was already made. A copy of the Committee’s letter was submitted along with a letter by representatives of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, who did not submit proof of being authorized to represent the complainant before the authorities of the State party. Complainant’s comments on the State party’s observations on the merits 6.1 On 4 January 2019, the complainant submitted his comments on the State party’s observations on the merits. He emphasizes that the State party has ignored invitations of the Committee to submit its observations on the admissibility and merits of the complaint for almost a year, which, according to the complainant, reflects Government’s attitude towards its obligations arising from the Convention. 6.2 The complainant notes that the State party’s submission contains only observations by the Ministry of Justice of Serbia, but does not contain information from other state authorities, what led to a violation of the principle of non-refoulement enshrined in article 3, in conjunction with article 15 of the Convention. He further notes that this shows that the State party does not have an established mechanism to properly communicate with the UN treaty bodies. The complainant requests that the Committee examines the lack of a State mechanism or body consisted of trained professionals who would be in charge of communicating with the UN Treaty bodies, because establishing such body would prevent unjustified postponements in individual procedures and problems in communication between different authorities in the State party. 6.3 The complainant reiterates his position that he was extradited without the courts properly translating the required documents received from Turkey. He notes that on 8 December 2018, the Appellate Public Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad submitted a motion to the Appellate Court in Novi Sad stating that even though the first instance court had secured an adequate interpreter for the last court hearing, it had not acted in line with the instructions of the second instance court related to translation of the documents submitted by Turkey, and proposed to annul the first instance decision and to send the case back to the first instance court. The complainant agrees that while it was not necessary to translate the entire case file of his Turkish case, the State party’s authorities failed to provide adequate translation of any documents received from Turkey. 6.4 The complainant further reiterates that the Ministry of Justice has influenced the decision-making process of the appellate court by forcing it to reschedule the second instance hearing from 22 November 2017 to 15 November 2017, in order to resolve the entire case before the expiry of maximum length of the one-year extradition detention. The complainant does not consider this practice to be unusual since the independence of the judiciary in the 8