Seeking Remedies for Torture Victims: A Handbook on the Individual Complaints Procedures of the UN Tready Bodies the alleged victim from the relevant State, as the State cannot investigate the allegations if it does not know who that person is. The violation does not have to continue throughout the deliberation of the complaint, and indeed the violation can have ceased prior to submission of the complaint.66 For example, a complaint about the appalling conditions of a prison can be submitted on behalf of a former inmate who experienced and suffered from those conditions, but who has since been released and therefore does not experience those conditions anymore. However, a complaint is inadmissible if a violation has been recognized and remedied by the State in question. The HRC has stated that it has “no objection to a group of individuals, who claim to be similarly affected, collectively to submit a complaint about alleged breaches of their rights”.67 Therefore, it is possible to have a complaint decided on behalf of a group of individuals suffering from similar circumstances. However, even when proceeding as a group, each individual complainant must identify him- or herself, and agree to the complaint being brought on his or her behalf if represented by another person, such as an advocate. In Hartikainen v. Finland, the complainant was a teacher in a school in Finland and the General Secretary of the Union of Free Thinkers in Finland. The complainant submitted the communication on his own behalf and also on behalf of the Union of Free Thinkers. The HRC held that it could not consider the complaint submitted on behalf of the organization unless he provided the names and addresses of all the persons he claimed to represent and written authority confirming that he could act on their behalf. The HRC has also held that domestic legislation may threaten a person even if it has not been directly implemented against that person; that person may still be classified as a “victim” for the purposes of admissibility under the OP.68 For example, in Toonen v. Australia the complainant argued that the existence of Tasmanian laws which criminalized sexual relations between men stigmatized him as a gay man, despite the fact that the laws had not been implemented for many years. Furthermore, he lived with the constant possibility of arrest under the laws. The HRC found the claim to be admissible, stating that: The author had made reasonable efforts to demonstrate that the threat of enforcement and the pervasive impact of the continued existence of these provisions on administrative practices and public opinion had affected him and continued to affect him personally.69 It is possible for somebody to be a victim of a human rights abuse entailed in an act perpetrated upon another. In such cases, the former individual might be termed 66 67 68 69 50 See HRC, Van Duzen v. Canada, Comm. No. 50/1979. HRC, Ominayak, Chief of the Lubicon Lake Band v. Canada, Comm. No. 167/84, para. 32.1. Joseph and Castan (2013), para. 3.46. HRC, Toonen v. Australia, Comm. No. 488/1992, para. 5.1.