CAT/C/39/D/269/2005 page 12 facilitating his access to domestic remedies, the State party had continued to harass and intimidate him in 2005 and 2006, including by placing him under constant close surveillance. He had been placed under house arrest on several occasions. On 3 June 2006 he had been placed under temporary arrest and barred from leaving the country. 12.2 Given the State party’s persistent refusal to comment on the merits of the complaint, the complainant requested the Committee to base its decision on the facts as he had described them. He recalled that the Human Rights Committee and the Committee against Torture had consistently maintained that due weight must be given to a complainant’s allegations if the State party fails to provide any contradictory evidence or explanation. In the present case, the State party had not expressed any view on the merits. The complainant, however, had correctly proceeded to substantiate his allegations with a number of documents, including copies of his medical records, his complaint to the Tunisian judicial authorities, witness statements and several pieces of additional documentation. 12.3 The complainant asserted that the State party had not been able to demonstrate that remedies were effectively available to victims in Tunisia. It had merely described the domestic remedies available to victims in theory. The judicial system in Tunisia was not independent and the courts generally endorsed the Government’s decisions. Under the circumstances the burden of proof with regard to the effectiveness of remedies rested on the State party. In the present case, the State party had not met this burden of proof because it had merely described the availability of remedies in theory without contradicting any of the evidence provided by the complainant to show that such remedies were not available in practice. 13.1 On 15 May 2007, the State party asserted that the complainant was accusing the Tunisian judiciary of hidden intentions. As far as the date of submission of the complaint was concerned, the State party argued that the receipt produced by the complainant in no way proved that he had actually sent the complaint, since the receipt made no mention of the nature or purpose of the letter sent. The State party considered that the complainant was again indulging in slanderous allegations against the Tunisian judiciary. It recalled that criminal proceedings had been instituted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. More than 100 law enforcement officers had been brought before the correctional and criminal courts since 2000 for violations committed while on duty. There was therefore no doubt about the effectiveness of domestic remedies. 13.2 In the State party’s view, the complainant was resorting to manipulation in order to sabotage the judicial proceedings and disrupt the proper course of domestic remedies. Having undermined the efforts of the Public Prosecutor with the lower court in Tunis following submission of his complaint in September 2000, and those of the Deputy Prosecutor appointed to conduct the preliminary investigation into the allegations, the complainant was now adopting an attitude of non-cooperation. The complainant had been summoned to appear before the investigating magistrate on 30 April 2007 but had once again refused to make a statement on the grounds that his lawyer had not been permitted to attend, even though the examining magistrate had explained that his status as complainant did not require the assistance of a lawyer and that the latter did not need to be heard for the purposes of the inquiry. The examining magistrate therefore went ahead with other measures, including calling other people cited by the complainant. The case was continuing. Consequently, the State party considered that it was still within its rights to request the Committee to review its decision on admissibility pending the outcome of the ongoing judicial inquiry.