CCPR/C/116/D/2044/2011 July 2007, the Samarkand Ombudsman also requested the Supreme Court to take measures to protect the authors’ rights, but the request remained unsatisfied. The complaint 3.1 The authors claim that the arbitrary detention in a psychiatric hospital violated their rights under article 9 (1), (3) and (4) of the Covenant. 3.2 They further claim that the beating and the humiliating treatment that they were subjected to for expressing their opinions violated their rights under articles 7 and 19 (1) and (2) of the Covenant. 3.3 Finally, the authors claim that, despite the fact that domestic criminal law foresees responsibility for illegal detention and inhuman, humiliating and degrading treatment, the responsible authorities refused to investigate their case; the authors were therefore deprived of a remedy for the violations of their rights, and the State party therefore violated article 2 (3) of the Covenant. The authors maintain that such crimes are investigated ex officio and, since the prosecution refused to investigate their claims, they were precluded from doing so themselves. They claim that the above constitutes denial of justice under article 14 (1) of the Covenant.1 State party’s observations on admissibility and merits 4.1 On 14 June 2011, the State party submitted that, on 17 May 2007, the Samarkand City Court rejected the authors’ claims; that this decision was partly upheld by the Samarkand Regional Court on 26 June 2007 and that the proceedings concerning the part related to the medical doctor’s diagnosis were terminated; that, in the light of the authors’ inadequate behaviour, at the initiative of Sh. and N., the authors were taken to a psychiatric centre in order to examine their mental health; that, as a result of the authors’ medical examination, it was concluded that the second author had suffered damage to the scull and brain following a car accident, was slowly losing memory and suffered from post-traumatic encephalopathy, and the first author was diagnosed as having Bechterew’s disease and “borderline mental deviations against the background of a somatic illness”. 4.2 The State party further submits that, pursuant to article 270 of the Civil Procedure Code, a person may submit a complaint to a court within three months from the day he or she discovered that his or her rights and freedoms have been violated and within one month from the day when the person receives a decision in written form from a higher body or official refusing to satisfy the complaint, or within one month from the day when the onemonth time limit has expired for the authorities to reply, if they have not replied to the person in written form. In this regard, the State party noted that the authors approached a court with their claims only in April 2007, six months after their complaints to national authorities. In these circumstances, given that the authors had not presented before the court valid and reliable evidence in support of their claims, as required by article 57 of the Civil Procedure Code, and given that they had not observed the prescribed time limit for submitting their claims, the court, after taking the measures within its competence to establish the circumstances of the case, decided to reject the authors’ claims. 1 4 See communication No. 468/1991, Behamonde v. Equatorial Guinea, Views adopted on 20 October 1993, para. 9.4, where the Committee observed that “the notion of equality before the courts and tribunals encompasses the very access to the courts, and that a situation in which an individual's attempts to seize the competent jurisdictions of his/her grievances are systematically frustrated runs counter to the guarantees of article 14 (1).”