CCPR/C/125/D/2345/2014 submits, therefore, that there are no grounds for establishing that the return of the author to Afghanistan would constitute a breach of article 18 of the Covenant. 4.20 As to the author’s claims under articles 14 and 26 of the Covenant (see para. 3.4 above), the State party submits that it follows from section 48 of the rules of procedure of the Refugee Appeals Board 14 that the chair of the individual board, a legal judge, will decide on the matter of the reopening of an asylum case when, according to the contents of the request for reopening, there is no reason to assume that the Board will change its decision. Accordingly, it was the Chair of the Board that first heard the case who approved the relevant decision and not the staff member who formally signed it. 4.21 The State party observes in this connection that the author has been treated no differently from any other person applying for asylum in terms of race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Since he has not elaborated any further on the circumstances on which this part of the communication is based, the State party submits that the author has failed to establish a prima facie case for the purpose of admissibility with respect to the alleged violation of article 26 of the Covenant because it has not been established that there are substantial grounds for believing that the author has been subjected to discrimination. Thus, this part of the communication should be declared inadmissible. Author’s comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 30 November 2015, the author’s counsel informed the Committee that, despite the author’s forcible return to Afghanistan, he would continue to represent the author before the Committee since the power of attorney given to him remained in force. He also stated that the author was claiming a violation of article 13 instead of article 14 of the Covenant in that the author was only allowed an administrative procedure to assess his asylum grounds and was denied access to the courts to appeal the Board’s rejection of his request to reopen the asylum proceedings. 5.2 The author’s counsel does not have any comments in relation to the assessment of the author’s initial asylum grounds by the Danish Immigration Service and the Refugee Appeal Board. 5.3 The author’s counsel recalls that the author’s new sur place asylum ground, his conversion to Christianity in Denmark, was only examined and dismissed by a person who was part of the Board’s legal staff, with the approval of the Board’s Chair. Therefore, it was not the Board as such that made the decision to reject the request of the Danish Refugee Council to reopen the author’s asylum proceedings on the grounds that it could not be accepted as a fact that the author’s conversion was genuine. The author should have benefited from a new oral hearing before the Danish Immigration Service, 15 which would have allowed him to explain his new sur place asylum grounds, and he would then have had access to the Board as the second instance to take a decision on the matter. The lack of possibility for the author to prove in the framework of a new oral hearing before the Board that his conversion to Christianity was genuine constitutes a separate violation of article 13 of the Covenant. 5.4 The author’s counsel also argues that the lack of possibility for the author to appeal against the rejection of his new sur place asylum grounds also amounts to discrimination proscribed under article 26 of the Covenant. He submits, in particular, that in the entire Danish administrative system only new sur place asylum grounds are examined by the Board as the first and only instance of the asylum proceeding and that the Board’s negative decisions could only be appealed to United Nations treaty bodies or to the European Court of Human Rights. 14 15 Executive Order No. 1651 of 27 December 2013 on Rules of Procedure for the Refugee Appeals Board. According to the author’s counsel, as of 12 January 2012, the Danish Immigration Service is precluded from receiving requests for reopening of the asylum proceedings after a decision is taken by the Refugee Appeals Board. 9