CAT/C/59/D/606/2014 7.2 Concerning the request for a hearing of the parties, the State party expresses surprise at such a request, which, in principle, can be made only by the State party and not by counsel, as occurred in the case to which the complainant refers. It adds that such hearings are not provided for in the Committee’s rules of procedure concerning complaints under article 22 of the Convention. 7.3 On 16 April 2015, in response to counsel’s letter of 6 March 2015, the State party noted that access to the criminal case file was organized in two stages. The first stage is a preliminary phase during which it is not possible to consult the criminal case file.13 The second consists of a detailed hearing during which the criminal case file can be consulted 14 and the parties can be heard in the presence of their lawyers. In the present case, the judge refused to provide a copy of the criminal case file to the Moroccan lawyer from ACATFrance because he had asked to consult it at too early a stage in the proceedings. The State party adds that, since then, the lawyer has been informed of the decision, which he appealed on 16 March 2015. 7.4 The State party reiterates that the complainant has not exhausted domestic remedies because he has not filed a complaint of torture with the domestic courts. Committee’s decision on admissibility 8.1 On 20 April 2015, at its fifty-fourth session, the Committee considered the admissibility of the complaint and decided that it was admissible insofar as it raised issues under articles 1 and 12 to 16 of the Convention. The Committee concluded that the State party had failed to demonstrate that existing remedies for reporting acts of torture had, in practice, been made available to the complainant in order to enable him to exercise his rights under the Convention. 8.2 The Committee concluded that the one-year time period that had elapsed between the military court’s decision and the complaint’s submission to the Committee could not be regarded as constituting an abuse of the right to submit a complaint. 15 State party’s observations on the merits 9.1 On 18 September 2015, the State party reiterated its objection to the admissibility of the complaint on the grounds that no final decision had been handed down against the complainant: the Court of Cassation had not yet ruled on the case, and could decide to return the case to the competent trial court. If the case was returned, all substantive and procedural issues as well as points of law could be raised. The State party therefore requested the Committee to reconsider its decision on the admissibility of the complaint. 9.2 On 24 September 2015, the State party reiterated its request for the Committee to revoke its decision on admissibility. The complainant was arrested in flagrante delicto during the dismantling of the camp on 8 November 2010 by the Royal Gendarmerie, and not by the police, on the basis of substantial and consistent evidence establishing his involvement in the criminal offences committed during those events. By claiming that he was arrested by the police on 7 November 2010, and that he was subsequently tortured, the complainant is merely seeking to exonerate himself from responsibility for the very serious events for which he was arrested on 8 November 2010. No request for an investigation into the torture to which he was allegedly subjected has been submitted to the judicial authorities or to any other national mechanism for the protection of human rights. Moreover, the suspects never claimed to have been subjected to abuse, torture or ill-treatment at any stage of the proceedings before the competent judicial authorities. Furthermore, neither the Crown Prosecutor, nor the investigating judge at Laâyoune Court of Appeal, nor the military prosecutor nor the military investigating judge found any evidence of brutality that might have led them to open an ex officio investigation. 13 14 15 GE.17-06158 See Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 134. See Code of Criminal Procedure, art. 139. The Committee recalled that neither the Convention nor the Committee’s rules of procedure established a time limit for submitting a complaint. 9