CCPR/C/125/D/2948/2017 not properly considered the challenges that they would face if they were returned to India, they should have invoked the domestic remedy provided by Canada in order to support their claim. The adult authors did not do so, however. As the Committee has repeatedly acknowledged, a State party generally cannot be held accountable for the errors or omissions of an independent legal adviser.1 Moreover, the authors subsequently applied for leave for a judicial review of the negative decision regarding their application for permanent residence on humanitarian and compassionate grounds but no decision had been handed down at the time of submission of the present communication. Furthermore, their claims based on article 24 (1) of the Covenant are inadmissible since they have not exhausted all available domestic remedies. 4.4 Secondly, the authors’ claims of violations of articles 2, 6, 9, 10 and 24 of the Covenant are inadmissible because they are incompatible ratione materiae with these provisions, which have no extraterritorial application. Article 2 of the Covenant does not establish an independent right to reparation; therefore, allegations relating to this article but not to an article of the Covenant that confers a right on the author of a communication cannot, in themselves, serve as the basis for a claim in a communication submitted under the Optional Protocol.2 J.S.’s rights under article 6 of the Covenant have not been violated, because he is not the subject of a removal order. Moreover, even if Canada was responsible for the removal of J.S., the Covenant places no obligation on Canada to refrain from deporting a person who would face less favourable conditions in his or her country of origin than in Canada. Since articles 9 and 10 of the Covenant do not involve a non-refoulement obligation, Canada bears no responsibility within the meaning of the Covenant. The rights of the authors’ children under article 24 of the Covenant have not been violated, for the children are not the subject of a removal order. In addition, even if Canada was responsible for the children’s removal, article 24 of the Covenant does not impose a non-refoulement obligation on the State party ordering the removal. 4.5 Thirdly, Canada maintains that the authors have not sufficiently substantiated their claims relating to articles 6, 7, 17, 23, 24 and 26 of the Covenant, which means that their communication is inadmissible under article 3 of the Optional Protocol and rule 96 of the Committee’s rules of procedure. The allegations and evidence submitted by the authors have already been examined by the competent and impartial Canadian authorities, all of whom concluded that the authors’ claims regarding the problems they might face in India lacked credibility. Canada stresses in particular that, as the Refugee Protection Division member pointed out, the adult authors did not arrive in Canada as persons in danger, since they could have stayed in Malaysia for approximately one year more, given that Mr. H.S. had a work permit. Furthermore, they applied for asylum in Canada only after they were challenged by border officers who ascertained that they were not “genuine visitors”.3 4.6 The Canadian authorities who assessed the risks facing the adult authors concluded that their fears were not well founded, in view of the total lack of credible or objective evidence to support the claims that: (a) the Indian police believe Mr. H.S. to have collaborated with political movements, and questioned and tortured him twice; (b) Mr. H.S. would be arrested upon arrival in India; and (c) all persons who have been declared to be “proclaimed offenders” are at risk of torture or ill-treatment. Canada also maintains that the fact that the author faces criminal charges does not necessarily mean that he faces a foreseeable, real and personal risk of irreparable harm. The Indian Penal Code does not provide for the imposition of the death penalty. 4 The authors have not submitted any credible or objective evidence that all persons declared proclaimed offenders or who are charged with fraud (and not terrorism) are at risk of torture or ill-treatment. The authors base their claims of risk on general reports about the country, without showing that Mr. H.S. 1 2 3 4 4 See, for example, Edwards v. Jamaica (CCPR/C/55/D/529/1993), para. 5.2, and Henry v. Jamaica, (CCPR/C/64/D/610/1995), para. 7.4. General comment No. 31 (2004) on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant, para. 3. Legal visitors. The Indian Penal Code does provide for the imposition of the death penalty in certain circumstances. It is nevertheless unlikely that the author would be at risk of being sentenced to death if he returned to India, because the offences that he supposedly committed are not punishable by the death penalty. GE.19-08918