CCPR/C/112/D/2111/2011 prosecuting those responsible for disappearances and providing adequate compensation and relief to the victims and their families. 2.12 On 7 September 2009, the National Human Rights Commission issued a report concerning the Maharajgunj barracks, in which it stated that the author’s husband had been kept in the barracks and had later disappeared. The Commission also noted that 43 persons kept in custody at the Maharajgunj barracks had been taken to the Shivapuri National Park in the Kathmandu Valley and killed between December 2003 and January 2004.4 2.13 The author claims that she tried to exhaust all domestic remedies. Her writ of habeas corpus was quashed by the Supreme Court, the highest domestic tribunal, and there is no other domestic remedy to exhaust.5 The National Human Rights Commission cannot be considered an effective remedy. As regards the first information report, it is limited to the crimes listed in schedule 1 of the State Cases Act of 1992, which does not include enforced disappearance and torture. Furthermore, the filing of first information reports in disappearance cases does not constitute an appropriate remedy, as the authorities usually argue that the person’s death cannot be proved in the absence of a body. Although torture is forbidden, pursuant to the Interim Constitution and section 3 (1) of the Compensation Relating to Torture Act, 2053 (1996), it has not been criminalized by national law. The Act does not provide for criminal accountability, but only for compensation of a maximum of Nr. 100,000 and a claim must be filed within 35 days of the torture or release from detention. Despite the order of the Supreme Court in 2007 to criminalize enforced disappearance, no action has been taken in that respect. The complaint 3.1 The author argues that her husband was the victim of enforced disappearance and that the State party violated his rights under articles 6; 7; 9, paragraphs 1–4; 10, paragraph 1; 16; and 22, alone and read in conjunction with article 2, paragraph 3, of the Covenant; her rights under article 7, read in conjunction with article 2, paragraph 3, of the Covenant; and her minor daughter’s rights under article 7, read in conjunction with articles 2, paragraph 3, and 24, paragraph 1, of the Covenant. 3.2 The author claims that, although there are no eye-witnesses to the precise moment of her husband’s arrest, there are strong reasons to believe that he was arbitrarily arrested on 26 September 2003, kept in the Maharajgunj barracks and forcibly disappeared by State agents. Moreover, in view of testimonies and other concurrent evidence from different reliable sources, it is reasonable to presume that he was killed by members of the Army. His arbitrary deprivation of liberty took place within the context of massive arrests, enforced disappearances and torture of persons suspected of being Maoists. Against that background, the burden of proof rests on the State party to provide a satisfactory and convincing explanation, establishing and disclosing with certainty her husband’s fate and whereabouts. Therefore, in the light of the State party’s failure to demonstrate the contrary, 4 5 The author refers to the report of the investigation undertaken by the National Human Rights Comission into disappearances at the Maharajgunj barracks, which was ordered by the Supreme Court, pp. 1–2. She also notes that, in November 2008, at the request of OHCHR-Nepal, two experts from the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Turku, Finland, conducted a preliminary investigation of a possible mass burial or cremation site in Shivapuri forest. The experts concluded that the remains they had found were human. In addition, the name of the author’s husband was included in a report by the the International Committee of the Red Cross entitled “Missing persons in Nepal: the right to know – updated listed 2009” (August 2009). The author refers to the Committee’s jurisprudence in communication No. 1469/2006, Sharma v. Nepal, Views adopted on 28 October 2008, para. 6.3. 5