CCPR/C/125/D/2345/2014 impossibility of appealing the Refugee Appeals Board’s rejection of the request to reopen the author’s asylum proceedings before a court. In response to this claim, the State party refers to the Committee’s jurisprudence, which states that article 13 offers some of the guarantees afforded by article 14 (1) of the Covenant, but not the right to appeal 19 or the right to a court hearing. 20 Since the author has not elaborated any further on the circumstances on which this part of the communication is based, the State party submits that he has failed to establish a prima facie case for the purpose of admissibility of his claims under article 13 of the Covenant, as required by rule 96 (b) of the Committee’s rules of procedure. This part of the communication is therefore manifestly ill-founded and should be declared inadmissible. 6.3 Regarding the reopening of asylum proceedings, the State party generally observes that, when the Board has decided a case, the asylum seeker may request the Board to reopen the asylum proceedings. The power to decide on the reopening of an asylum case is vested in the Chair, who is always a judge, of the panel that made the original decision in the case when, according to the contents of the request for reopening, there is no reason to assume that the Board will change its decision, or the conditions for being granted asylum must be deemed evidently satisfied. 21 The Chair may also decide to reopen a case and remit it to the Danish Immigration Service relying on his powers as Chair. The Chair may further decide that the panel that previously decided the case is to decide on the reopening of the case either at a hearing or by deliberations in writing, that the case is to be reopened and considered at a new oral hearing by the panel that previously decided the case, and with all parties to the case present, or that the case is to be reopened and considered at a hearing by a new panel.22 If a basis is found for reopening a case, the time limit for departure will be suspended pending the rehearing of the case. The Board will also assign counsel to represent the asylum seeker. 6.4 The Board’s secretariat assists the Executive Committee in drafting decisions, which become final when endorsed by the Board’s Chair. Subsequently, the decision is signed by an employee of the secretariat and delivered to the asylum seeker. Accordingly, both formally and in practice, decisions on reopening requests are made by the chair of the relevant panel. The circumstance that a decision is signed by an employee of the secretariat does not alter this fact. The legislation on the consideration of requests to reopen asylum cases is thus clear and leaves no doubt about the competence of the Board. Consequently, there is no basis for claiming that decisions refusing requests to reopen are made by the Board’s secretariat. Therefore, the author has failed to establish a prima facie case for the purpose of admissibility of his claim under article 26 of the Covenant as it has not been established that there are substantial grounds for believing that the author has been subjected to discrimination. This part of the communication should therefore be declared inadmissible. 6.5 With regard to the author’s alleged conversion to Christianity, the State party recalls that, in its decision of 6 February 2014, the Board had not been able to consider as a fact that the author’s conversion from Islam to Christianity was genuine. As regards the assessment of evidence made by the Board on the author’s alleged conversion and his other grounds for asylum, the State party refers to its observations of 11 August 2014 in their entirety. 6.6 The State party also draws the Committee’s attention to the fact that public debate in Denmark in general and among asylum seekers in particular has focused considerably on the significance of conversion, typically from Islam to Christianity, to the outcome of an asylum case. It is therefore common knowledge among asylum seekers and other parties within the field of asylum that information on conversion is considered grounds for asylum that may, depending on the circumstances, result in the granting of residence if the 19 20 21 22 Mr. X and Ms. X v. Denmark (CCPR/C/112/D/2186/2012), para. 6.3. See Maroufidou v. Sweden (CCPR/C/12/D/58/1979). In this communication, the Committee did not dispute the assertion that an administrative review of a decision expelling an alien from Sweden did not amount to a violation of article 13 of the Covenant. See sect. 53 of the Aliens Act and rule 48 of the rules of procedure of the Refugee Appeals Board. See rule 48 (2) of the rules of procedure of the Refugee Appeals Board. 11