CAT/C/53/D/482/2011
Committee must decide whether there are substantial grounds for believing that the
complainants would be personally in danger of being subjected to torture if they were
returned to Kosovo. In assessing this risk, the Committee must take account of all relevant
considerations, pursuant to article 3, paragraph 2, of the Convention, including the
existence of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.
However, the Committee recalls that the aim of such an analysis is to determine whether
the individuals concerned would be personally exposed to a real and foreseeable risk of
being subjected to torture in the country to which they would return. It follows that the
existence of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights in a
country does not as such constitute sufficient grounds for determining that a particular
person would be in danger of being subjected to torture upon return to that country.
Additional grounds must be adduced to show that the individual concerned would be
personally at risk. By the same token, the absence of a consistent pattern of flagrant
violations of human rights does not mean that a person is not at risk of being subjected to
torture in his or her specific circumstances.
8.3
The Committee recalls that the State party’s obligation to refrain from forcibly
returning a person to another State when there are substantial grounds for believing that he
or she would be in danger of being subjected to torture is directly linked to the definition of
torture as set forth in article 1 of the Convention. For the purposes of the Convention, “the
term ‘torture’ means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental,
is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third
person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has
committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third
person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering
is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official
or other person acting in an official capacity.”
8.4
The Committee notes that the complainants have never been subjected to torture or
ill-treatment by the Kosovo authorities. The Committee also notes that, by their own
account, the complainants are claiming to have been victims of threats and to have been
placed at risk in Kosovo by members of another family which has no connection with
government authorities. The Committee notes that the complainants refer to the weakness
and inefficacy of the police and the judicial system in Kosovo and numerous cases of
corruption, but observes that these are allegations of a general nature without direct bearing
on the case. The Committee therefore considers that the complainants have not sufficiently
substantiated their allegations concerning the failure of the State to protect them from the
attacks to which they were subjected.
9.
The Committee against Torture, acting under article 22, paragraph 7, of the
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, therefore concludes that the complainants’ removal to Kosovo by the State
party would not constitute a breach of article 3 of the Convention. However, the removal of
one of the complainants, V.S., to Kosovo in March 2014, notwithstanding the interim
measures requested by the Committee, constitutes a violation of article 22 of the
Convention.
10.
Pursuant to rule 118, paragraph 5, of its rules of procedure, the Committee urges the
State party to take steps to prevent similar violations of article 22 from occurring in the
future and to ensure that, in cases where the Committee has ordered interim measures, the
complainants are not deported until the Committee has decided on the merits.
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