CCPR/C/113/DR/2176/2012 article 22 also guarantees the right not to be compelled to join an association against one’s will, the right to resign, the right not to be bound by the rules of the Association or be subject to its disciplinary powers. 3.12 The author asks the Committee to order the State party to compensate him for the material and non-material damage suffered over a period of 10 years. The State party’s observations on admissibility 4.1 On 12 November 2013, the State party submitted its observations on the admissibility of the communication. It considers that the author has not sufficiently substantiated his allegations and that he merely makes assertions without producing any concrete evidence justifying admissibility. 8 The State party points out that the author’s complaints have been carefully considered by the national authorities, first by the Disciplinary Board of the Brussels Bar, then the Disciplinary Board of Appeal and, lastly, the Court of Cassation. The State party recalls that, as the Committee has confirmed on numerous occasions, in general, it is the responsibility of the appeal courts in States parties, not the Committee, to evaluate the facts and evidence in a specific case unless it can be proved that the national courts’ decisions were clearly arbitrary. 9 4.2 The State party observes that the Court of Cassation dismissed the author’s appeal on 9 June 2011 after carefully stating the reasons for its decision and rejecting the various submissions made by the author in support of his appeal. The Court stressed that the proceedings before the Disciplinary Board of the Brussels Bar were in strict accordance with relevant national legislation10 and respected the principle of equality of arms, which implies merely that all parties to the proceedings should have the same procedural means available to them and be able, under the same conditions, to have knowledge of the material and evidence submitted to the court for its consideration and to challenge those materials freely. It does not follow that parties with different status and interests must always be in absolutely identical circumstances. The Court noted in this regard that the investigator who had led the investigations into the author in the context of the disciplinary proceedings was not a member of the Disciplinary Board and did not take part in the deliberations. The decision to disbar the author was therefore made in accordance with the rules. 4.3 The State party notes that the Court of Cassation was able to assess the proportionality of the penalty in the light of the seriousness of the charges against the author, who could not be granted the benefit of mitigating circumstances and merely suspended. The State party recalls that practically all the complaints against the author were upheld and that the Disciplinary Board found that the author had committed “two gross breaches of professional secrecy under circumstances made all the more serious by the fact that he was motivated solely by the pursuit of his own interest” and that “his disregard and contempt for the rules of law and ethics that are the foundation of the profession of lawyer seem to know no boundaries”. The State party points out that the disciplinary penalty and the author’s disbarment are not based exclusively on the complaint of breach of professional secrecy reported by the author in the present communication. 4.4 The State party concludes that the claims submitted to the Committee by the author are totally unfounded and that the communication contains no concrete argument whatsoever that might substantiate his assertions and cast doubt on the detailed findings of 8 9 10 6 The State party cites communication No. 779/1997, Äärelä and Näkkäläjärvi v. Finland, Views adopted on 24 October 2001, para. 6.4. The State party cites communication No. 866/1999, Torregrosa Lafuente et al. v. Spain, inadmissibility decision of 16 July 2001, para. 6.2, and communication No. 947/2000, Hart v. Australia, inadmissibility decision of 25 October 2000, para. 4.3. The State party refers, in particular, to articles 459 (2), 465 and 467 of the Judicial Code. GE.15-08734