PART 2: Procedures of the Human Rights Commitee and the Committee against Torture It is important to bear in mind that national human rights institutions (NHRI), although playing a highly valuable role in monitoring the implementation of international human rights standards at the national level, are generally neither conceived as, nor considered to be, a domestic remedy capable of leading to the investigation, prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of a human rights violation within the meaning the jurisprudence has accorded to “available domestic remedies”; as a result, the Committees will usually not make the filing of petitions with NHRI conditional on the exhaustion of domestic remedies.133 In the context of non-refoulement cases, particularly regarding administrative remedies that might lead to upgrading the residence status, the CAT Committee has held that “the principle of exhaustion of domestic remedies requires petitioners to use remedies that are directly related to the risk of torture in the country to which they would be sent, not those that might allow them to remain where they are”.134 ii. How is One Supposed to Exhaust Domestic Remedies? In general, a person who wishes to submit a complaint to the HRC or the CAT Committee must raise the substance of his or her complaint before the domestic authorities in order for the complaint to be admissible. In Grant v. Jamaica, the complaint related to conditions of detention on death row. The HRC held that domestic remedies had not been exhausted because the complainant had not shown the HRC what steps he had taken in order to bring his complaints to the attention of the prison authorities, nor had he outlined whether any investigations had been carried out in response to his complaints.135 In Perera v. Australia, the complainant submitted a complaint to the HRC on the grounds that his trial was unfair because of the presence of a particular judge, and because he had not been provided with an interpreter. The HRC held that domestic remedies had not been exhausted as the judge’s participation was not challenged during the trial, nor was the absence of an interpreter brought to the attention of the court during the trial.136 A case will, thus, be declared inadmissible if main claims and facts covered by the substantive provisions of the CAT or by Article 7 of ICCPR have not been brought to the attention of the national competent authorities. Instructive in this context may be F.M-M. v. Switzerland, where the complainant alleged that he faced a real 133 See HRC, Giri v. Nepal, Comm. No. 1761/2008, para. 6.3. 134 Emphasis added. See CAT Committee, T.I. v. Canada, Comm. No. 333/2007, para. 6.4. See also CAT Committee, A.R. v. Sweden, Comm. No. 170/2000, para. 7.1. 135 HRC, Grant v. Jamaica, Comm. No. 353/1988, para. 5.1. Compare the Model Complaint (Textbox iii), para. 13. 136 HRC, Perera v. Australia, Comm. No. 541/1993, para. 6.5. See also, HRC, Mazón Costa and Morote Vidal v. Spain, Comm. No. 1326/04. 63