CAT/C/70/D/743/2016
The [Refugee Appeals Board] has now had the opportunity to consider the
admissibility and merits of the complaint. Consequently today the Board has
forwarded to the Ministry of Justice its contribution to the Government’s observations
to the Committee from which it appears, inter alia, that, in the opinion of the Board,
your client’s new complaint to the Committee should be considered inadmissible as
manifestly ill-founded. Accordingly, the Board finds no basis for continuing the
suspension of the time limit for your client’s departure. Your client must therefore
leave Denmark immediately upon service of the decision terminating the suspension
of the time limit for departure. As appears from the decision of the [Board] of 17
March 2016, your client may be forcibly returned to Turkey if he does not leave
voluntarily.
4.9
The State party notes that in his complaint to the Committee, the complainant claims
that Denmark would breach article 3 of the Convention in case of his forcible removal. He
repeats the allegations regarding his past political activities in Turkey that he made in his
communication No. 580/2014, and the information that he was subjected to torture in Turkey.
He provides no new information in his communication submitted on 15 April 2016, but relies
on the same grounds as in communication No. 580/2014.
4.10 In the context of communication No. 580/2014, the complainant produced a report
prepared by the Amnesty International Danish Medical Group, dated 25 September 2014.
The complainant reiterates that he has never been subjected to a medical examination for
signs of torture by the State party. He claims a violation of article 3 of the Convention, based
on the Refugee Appeals Board’s rejection of the conclusions of the report by Amnesty
International, its refusal to order a medical examination of the complainant and its rejection
of the complainant’s asylum application. According to the complainant, if the Board had
wanted to contest the findings of the Amnesty International report, the Board should have
ordered a medical examination. He claims that the State party failed to fulfil its obligations
to carry out a medical examination by merely summoning him to an oral hearing. The
complainant further claims that at the hearing before the Board on 14 March 2016, members
of the Board asked him only a few questions, unrelated to the Amnesty International report.
4.11 The State party notes that in the Committee’s decision of 20 May 2005 concerning
Agiza v. Sweden (CAT/C/34/D/233/2003), the Committee considered whether a complaint
submitted to it was a simple resubmission of an already decided issue, thus constituting an
abuse of process under article 22 (2) of the Convention and the equivalent of rule 113,
paragraph (b), of the Committee’s rules of procedures. Since the complaints related to two
different persons, the Committee decided that they were not of an essentially identical nature
and therefore did not consider the second complaint to constitute an abuse of the right of
submission. In the present case, however, the complaint is of an essentially identical nature
to the previous complaint. The case relates to the same party as in communication No.
580/2014 and to the same substantive rights, under article 3 of the Convention. Regarding
the facts of the case, the State party notes that in both cases, the complainant has relied on
the same information on his situation in Turkey during the period 2006–2010. No substantial
new information has been provided in the present case beyond that already available in the
context of communication No. 580/2014. The present communication should thus be
declared inadmissible under article 22 (2) of the Convention and rule 113, paragraph (b), of
the Committee’s rules of procedures.
4.12 Following the complainant’s appearance on two occasions before the Refugee
Appeals Board, the Board dismissed in their entirety the complainant’s statements regarding
his political activities and the resulting abuse and torture. In this connection, the Board took
into consideration the Committee’s decision of 23 November 2015 concerning
communication No. 580/2014.
4.13 The State party considers that the Committee is not better placed to assess evidence
than the national migration authorities, which have heard the statements made by the
complainant in person. The Committee should rely on the assessment of evidence by the
Refugee Appeals Board unless exceptional circumstances apply. In its decision of 17 March
2016, the Board found as follows regarding the possibility of a new medical examination:
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