CAT/C/59/D/633/2014 4.7 The State party maintained that the evidence that the complainant had provided in his submissions had been considered through its comprehensive domestic administrative and judicial processes. It referred to the Committee’s general comment No. 1 (1997) on the implementation of article 3, stating that, as the Committee is not an appellate or judicial body, it gives considerable weight to findings of fact that are made by organs of a State party.11 The State party requested that the Committee accept that it had thoroughly assessed the complainant’s claims through its domestic processes and had found that it did not owe the complainant protection under the Convention. The State party takes its obligations under the Convention seriously and has implemented them in good faith through its domestic migration processes. 4.8 The State party acknowledged that “complete accuracy is seldom to be expected by victims of torture”.12 Domestic decision makers had taken into account the need to make some allowance for flaws and inconsistencies in the complainant’s testimony. For example, in assessing the complainant’s protection visa application, the decision maker had acknowledged the need to be sensitive to the difficulties often faced by asylum seekers. 4.9 The State party submitted that the complainant’s claims in the communication had been considered during the following domestic processes: the protection visa application; an independent merits review by RRT; judicial review by the Federal Circuit Court and the Federal Court of Australia; and a request for ministerial intervention. 4.10 The complainant lodged an application for a protection visa on 22 August 2012. He was granted a bridging (general) (subclass 050) visa on 13 September 2012, while his protection visa application was under consideration by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection. On 18 October 2012, his protection visa application was refused. The decision maker had, with the assistance of an interpreter, conducted an interview with the complainant and had considered other relevant material such as country information provided by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. The decision maker considered the complainant’s circumstances, including his two months of forced service in a Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization camp in 1987, his history of forced payments to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, his occupation as a rickshaw driver, his Tamil ethnicity and his possible status as a failed asylum seeker. 4.11 The decision maker noted that the complainant had been able to obtain a Sri Lankan passport and to travel through government checkpoints, including at the national airport, multiple times, suggesting that he was not of interest to the Sri Lankan authorities. Having reviewed relevant country information, the decision maker did not consider that there was a real chance that the complainant would be persecuted if returned to Sri Lanka. The decision maker considered whether the complainant was owed protection under section 36 (2) (aa) of the Migration Act, which implements the non-refoulement obligations of the Government of Australia under the Convention. Those provisions apply where the decision maker is satisfied that there are substantial grounds for believing that, as a necessary and foreseeable consequence of a non-citizen’s removal from Australia, there is a real risk that the non-citizen will suffer significant harm. One factor relevant to the complainant’s complementary protection claims related to possible harassment by the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal. The complainant’s wife and children had allegedly been evicted by that group from the complainant’s house in 2007, while the complainant was in Dubai. The complainant had returned in an attempt to repossess the property, but the group had refused to relinquish it. After some months, the complainant and his wife had regained the house, with the assistance of the village administrator. In his interview with the decision maker, the complainant stated that as a result of that incident, the group was constantly giving him 11 12 See general comment No. 1, para. 9 (a). See communication No. 21/1995, Alan v. Switzerland, Views adopted on 8 May 1996, para. 11.3. 5