CAT/C/63/D/678/2015 5.2 In response to the State party’s assertion that the complainant is not a victim under articles 10 and 11 of the Convention, the complainant agrees with the State party that the articles do not give the complainant individual rights in and of themselves, however he argues that since article 16 gives subjective rights to individuals, articles 10 and 11, when combined with article 16, give rise to State party obligations, and can be claimed by the complainant, as a victim. 5.3 The complainant states that although the facts that he submitted to the Committee are the same as those included in his application to the European Court of Human Rights, his complaint before the Committee does not refer to the same substantive rights, given that articles 12 and 16 of the Convention do not have the same content as article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Moreover, the European Court of Human Rights has not “examined” the same matter. Since the European Court of Human Rights considered the application inadmissible without giving any other reasons beyond referring to articles 34 and 35 of the European Convention on Human Rights, one cannot argue that inadmissibility under the European Convention on Human Rights corresponds to the same inadmissibility grounds that would lead to inadmissibility under the Convention against Torture. 5.4 The complainant submits that domestic remedies have been exhausted, because his complaint has been considered by the Norwegian Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs, the Director General of Public Prosecutions and the Norwegian Civil Affairs Authority, and no investigation has been opened as a result of these complaints. The State party has therefore had many opportunities to consider and remedy the alleged violations. The complainant also argues that the Norwegian Bureau for the Investigation of Police Affairs is actually better suited to investigating cases such as his than national courts are, in part because the Bureau has powers to obtain, secure and assess relevant evidence. The complainant indicates that launching a private prosecution in this case would be very difficult in practice, because the identities of the police officers responsible for the beatings are not known. It would be impossible to obtain necessary statements about the events connected with the complainant’s detention and the result would be a lack of evidence, which is also why the Bureau decided to not prosecute the police. Furthermore, the complainant could not bring a civil claim for damages before the Norwegian courts because he had not suffered a direct monetary loss, which would be necessary under the Norwegian Compensation Act. Thus, any civil lawsuit in this case would be hopeless. Nor could he appeal against the decision of the Norwegian Civil Affairs Authority to courts, because his claim would be found to be too old. 5.5 The complainant claims that when there are alternative remedies available, a State party cannot demand that all possible legal remedies be exhausted, and that it must be sufficient that one claim has been pursued as far as possible. 11 He argues that he has taken his penal case as far as possible, and that it would be unreasonable to ask him for further steps over and above those he has already taken. 5.6 Finally, the complainant questions the State party’s claim that he could have sued the Government in a Norwegian court for a declaratory action. The Norwegian Supreme Court has ruled that in order for there to be a finding of a breach of an international convention, the convention itself must stipulate an effective legal remedy at the national level regarding breach of the convention, as is the case in article 13 of the European Convention on Human Rights and article 2 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Supreme Court has ruled that the Convention against Torture does not have the same status as Norwegian law, thus the complainant cannot bring a claim on the basis of the Convention itself.12 It would be unreasonable to expect the complainant to take his case through the Norwegian judicial system to have the Supreme Court rule on this matter again, especially considering the costs associated with such litigation. The complainant does not have the means to cover the legal costs, and there is no public funding that would allow him to cover them. 11 12 The complainant refers to the European Court of Human Rights case of López Ostra v. Spain (application No. 16798/90), judgment of 9 December 1994, para. 36. Norwegian Supreme Court decisions Rt-2012-2034 and Rt-2008-513. 5