CAT/C/60/D/653/2015 people who want to leave Chechnya for Europe believe they will be rejected asylum unless they are able to document that they are in risk of being persecuted.11 4.22 The State party made reference to the findings of the European Court of Human Rights concerning assessments of credibility in asylum cases, including in the judgments delivered in R.C. v. Sweden (application No. 41827/07) and in M.E. v. Sweden (application No. 71398/12). The State party further refers to the judgment in M.E. v. Denmark (application No. 58363/10), wherein the Court expressed its opinion on the examination of a specific asylum case by the Danish Immigration Service and the Refugee Appeals Board, including the due process guarantees that characterized the examination. It also referred to the Views adopted on 22 October 2014 by the Human Rights Committee concerning communication No. 2186/2012, Mr. X and Ms. X v. Denmark (para. 7.5). 4.23 The Refugee Appeals Board, which is a collegial body of a quasi-judicial nature, made a thorough assessment of the complainants’ credibility and specific circumstances and found that the complainants had failed to render probable that they would be at risk of a violation of article 3 of the Convention if returned to the Russian Federation. The State party agreed with that finding and reiterated that, in their communication to the Committee, the complainants had failed to provide any new, specific details about their situation. In essence, their complaint to the Committee merely reflected that they disagreed with the assessment reached of their credibility made by the Board. The State party added that the complainants had failed to identify any irregularity in the decision-making process or any risk factors that the Board had failed to take properly into account. 4.24 The State party submitted that the complainants were in fact trying to use the Committee as an appellate body to have the factual circumstances advocated in support of their claim for asylum reassessed by the Committee. However, as stated in paragraph 9 of its general comment No. 1, the Committee is not an appellate, quasi-judicial or administrative body but, rather, a monitoring body. Therefore, in exercising its jurisdiction pursuant to article 3, the Committee should give considerable weight to findings of fact made by the organs of the State party concerned. In that connection, reference is also made to the case law of the Committee, in which it is indicated that due weight must be accorded to findings of fact made by domestic, judicial or other competent government authorities, unless it can be demonstrated that such findings are arbitrary or unreasonable. 12 4.25 Furthermore, the Committee has stated that it is for the courts of the States parties, not the Committee, to evaluate the facts and evidence in a particular case and that it is for the appellate courts of the States parties to examine the conduct of a case, unless it can be ascertained that the manner in which the evidence was evaluated was clearly arbitrary or amounted to a denial of justice, or that the officers had clearly violated their obligations of impartiality.13 Complainants’ comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 15 September 2016, the complainants submitted that, after the 19 December 2014 decision rejecting their asylum had been taken by the Refugee Appeals Board, a medical examination of A.M.D. was carried out by Amnesty International and that the results corroborated A.M.D.’s allegations of torture. Furthermore, A.M.D. had described the torture he had been subjected to in detail; his psychological condition was critical. The complainants applied for their case to be reopened but, on 26 May 2015, the Board refused to do so. 5.2 The complainants noted that, in its 19 December 2014 decision, the Refugee Appeals Board had found that the complainants lacked credibility. They also noted, however, that the subsequent medical examination of the complainant had confirmed that 11 12 13 The State party referred to page 48 of “Security and human rights in Chechnya and the situation of Chechens in the Russian Federation — residence registration, racism and false accusations”, a report published by the Danish Immigration Service in January 2015. See, inter alia, communication No. 148/1999, A.K. v. Australia, decision adopted on 5 May 2004, para. 6.4. See communication No. 282/2005, S.P.A. v. Canada, decision adopted on 7 November 2006, para. 7.6. 7