ib) That, in accordance with article 4 (2) of the Op­ tional Protocol, the State party should be requested to submit to the Committee, within six months of the date of the transmittal to it of the Committee's decision, written explanations or statements clarifying the matter and the measures, if any, that it had taken to remedy the situation; (c) That the State party should be requested to fur­ nish the Committee with information on the present state of heahh of Raúl Sendic Antonaccio, the medical treatment given to him and his exact whereabouts; (d) That the State party should be informed that the written explanations or statement submitted by it under article 4 (2) of the Optional Protocol must relate primarily to the substance of the matter under con­ sideration. The Committee stressed that, in order to discharge its responsibilities, it required specific responses to the allegations which had been made by the author of the communication, and the State party's ex­ planations of its actions. The State party was requested, in that connection, to enclose copies of any court orders or decisions of relevance to the matter under considera­ tion. 10. In a letter dated 3 October 1980, the author argued that her husband had the right to be informed of the Committee's decision of 25 July 1980, declaring the communication admissible, and that he should be given copies of the relevant documents and afforded an op­ portunity to supplement them as he saw fit. 11. On 24 October 1980, the Human Rights Com­ mittee, Noting that the author of the communication, in her submission of 28 November 1979, had expressed grave concern as to her husband's state of heahh and the fact that his whereabouts were kept secret by the Govern­ ment of Uruguay, Taking into account the fact that its previous requests for information about the present situation of Raúl Sen­ dic Antonaccio had gone unheeded. Noting further the letter dated 3 October 1980 from the author of the communication. Decided: 1. That the State party should be reminded of the decisions of 26 March and 25 July 1980 in which the Human Rights Committee requested information about the state of heahh of Raúl Sendic Antonaccio, the medical treatment given to him and his exact whereabouts; 2. That the State party should be urged to provide the information sought without any further delay; 3. That, as requested by Violeta Setelich, the State party should be requested to transmit all written material pertaining to the proceedings (submissions of the parties, decisions of the Human Rights Committee) to Raúl Sendic Antonaccio, and that he should be given the opportunity himself to communicate directly with the Committee. about her husband's state of health. She reiterated that after soldiers had struck him in the lower abdomen with gun butts at Colonial barracks in mid-1974, her hus­ band had developed an inguinal hernia and that there was a risk that the hernia might become strangulated. She stated that Sendic's relatives had repeatedly re­ quested that he should be operated on because of his extremely poor state of health, but to no avail. 12.2 She added that her husband's conditions of detention were slightly better at the Regimiento Pablo Galarza No. 2, since he was allowed to go out to the open air for one hour a day. She stressed, however, that he should be transferred to the Libertad Prison, where all other pohtical prisoners were held. 12.3 Concerning her husband's legal situation, she added the following information: (i) In July 1980, her husband was sentenced to the maximum penalty under the Uruguayan Penal Code: 30 years' imprisonment and 15 years of special security measures. He had not been in­ formed of the charges against him before the trial, or allowed to present witnesses and the hearing had been held in camera and in his absence. He had been denied the right of defence as he had never been able to contact the lawyer assigned to him, Mr. Almicar Perrea. (ii) In September 1980 and in AprU and May 1981, the authorities announced that her husband's sentence was to be reviewed by the Supreme Military Tribunal, but this had not yet occurred. (in) Though Sendic's relatives had appointed Maître Chéron to be his lawyer. Maître Chéron was denied in September 1980 and in January 1981 the right to examine Sendic's dossier and to visit him. 13. The time-limit for the State party's submission under article 4 (2) of the Optional Protocol expired on 27 February 1981. To date, no such submission has been received from the State party. 14. On 21 August 1981, the State party submitted the following comments on the Committee's decision of 24 October 1980 (see para. 11 above): The Committee's decision of 24 October 1980 adopted at its eleventh session on the case in question exceeds its authority. The competence granted to the Committee on Human Rights by the Op­ tional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is contained in article 5 (4) which states: "The Committee shall forward its views to the State party concerned and to the individual." The scope of this rule is quite clearly defined. The Committee has authority only to send its observations to the State party concerned. On the contrary, in the present decision, the Committee had ar­ rogated to itself competence which exceeds its powers. The Human Rights Committee is applying a rule which does not ex­ ist in the text of the Covenant and the Protocol, whereas the function of the Committee is to fulfil and apply the provisions of those interna­ tional instruments. It is inadmissible for a body such as the Committee to create rules flagranUy deviating from the texts emanating from the will of the ratifying States. Those were the circumstances in which the decision in question was taken. Paragraph 3 requests, with absolutely no legal basis, that a detainee under the jurisdiction of a State party—Uruguay—be given the opportunity to communicate directly with the Committee. The Government of Uruguay rejects that deci­ sion, since to accept it would be to create the dangerous precedent of 12.1 In further letters dated 9 February, 27 May and 22 July 1981, the author restated her deep concern 103