CCPR/C/115/D/2258/2013 the Refugees Appeals Board, the Danish Immigration Service and the Ministry of justice had assessed ex officio whether the authors could be granted a residence permit under section 9c (3) (ii). The assessment of an asylum seeker’s procedural capacity is made on the basis of a personal appearance and the ability to give relevant answers to the questions asked during a Board hearing. During the hearing of a case, the Board would take into special consideration the asylum seeker’s individual situation, including his or her age and health. The State party referred to the UNHCR Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status6 and pointed out that the Board would, from the outset, be less demanding when it came to the burden of proof in cases involving asylum seekers who were minors or who had a mental disorder or impairment. Authors’ comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 16 February 2014, the authors submitted their comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility and merits. They argued that background material about the human rights situation in Sri Lanka published after 22 September 2010 should have been taken into account by the Refugee Appeals Board when considering their request for reopening the asylum proceedings, and by the Ministry of Justice in reaching its decision of 27 February 2013. According to that background material, Tamils were exposed to massive abuse and arbitrary detention in Sri Lanka, providing sufficient ground for reopening their asylum proceedings.7 In the view of the authors, all Tamils were at risk in Sri Lanka. 5.2 The authors submitted that the 2012 UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum Seekers from Sri Lanka indicated that Tamils with family ties to former LTTE supporters were exposed to treatment which might give rise to a need for international protection. 5.3 The authors submitted that the burden of proof should be lower when it came to minor asylum seekers, and health problems or other vulnerabilities should also be considered. In their case, psychological examinations carried out by the Danish Red Cross had indicated that the authors had limited cognitive skills, suffered from anxiety and needed special support.8 However, the authorities had failed to give any special consideration to that information. The Ministry of Justice had assumed that their mother and sister were still alive, in spite of the fact that 40,000 persons had been killed at the time and place they were last seen and that the authors had heard nothing about them since. As to their uncle, they did not know if he still lived in Colombo, and had had no contact with him or any other relative in the previous five years. Moreover, the authors claimed that their uncle had told them that he did not want to take care of them because he was hiding his Tamil origin. 5.4 The authors submitted that the State party’s observations concerning their accounts were not accurate. They highlighted that, in their interviews with the Danish authorities as part of the asylum proceedings, they had mentioned that they had left the Ramanathan camp secretly and because their uncle had paid a bribe to some of the staff. The military staff had accused the authors of having fought for LTTE, interrogated them about their father and hit one of them. 5.5 The authors reiterated that the authorities had failed to give due consideration to relevant information, such as the fact that they were Tamils, had been taken to a military camp from which they had escaped by paying a bribe, had left the country illegally, had a father who had been a member of LTTE and had come from an area that had been 6 7 8 8 Specifically to paras. 206-219 of the Handbook. The authors refer to the UNHCR Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum Seekers from Sri Lanka; and Human Rights Watch, “We Will Teach You a Lesson”. The authors did not provide any documentation. It appears that they were referring to the report provided by the Red Cross as part of the proceedings to determine if they met the conditions for being granted residence permits under section 9c (3) (ii) of the Aliens Act.