PART 2: Procedures of the Human Rights Commitee and the Committee against Torture a real opportunity to seek interim measures under CAT, and was therefore a breach of Article 22.343 Likewise, in Adel Tebourski v. France, as well as in Elif Pelit v. Azerbaijan, the CAT Committee stated that the manner in which the State party handled the cases, overlooking the requests for interim measures with the deportation of the complainants, amounted to a breach of their rights under Articles 3 and 22 of the Convention.344 The CAT Committee has generally made these decisions in the face of the State party’s denial of any binding effect of requests for interim orders.345 In Sogi v. Canada, the State party upheld the non-binding nature of requests for interim measures and, subsequently contended that non-compliance with such a request by returning the complainant to India did not entail a violation of Articles 3 and 22 of the Convention. In this regard, the Committee stated that: [T]he State party’s obligations include observance of the rules adopted by the Committee, which are inseparable from the Convention, including rule 108 of the rules of procedure, which is specifically intended to give meaning and scope to article 3 and 22 of the Convention.346 In sum, the case law discussed above makes clear that adherence to requests for interim measures should be considered as binding by States that have authorized the relevant Committee to receive individual complaints, as non-compliance with interim measures undermines the integrity of those individual complaints systems. Indeed, the record of compliance regarding interim measures from the HRC and the CAT Committee is quite good in comparison to the general record of States in complying with final views.3147 For example, States parties had uniformly complied with more than 100 requests for interim measures sent by the HRC before Trinidad and Tobago ignored such an order in Ashby v. Trinidad and Tobago,348 suggesting that the majority of States parties accept the binding nature of such requests. 343 CAT Committee, Agiza v. Sweden, Comm. No. 233/2003, para. 13.9. 344 CAT Committee, Pelit v. Azerbaijan, Comm. No. 281/2005, para 11; Tebourski v. France, Comm. No. 300/2006, para. 8.7. 345 See France’s arguments at CAT Committee, Brada v. France, Comm. No. 195/2002, para. 8.2. 346 CAT Committee, Sogi v. Canada, Comm. No. 297/2006, para. 10.11. 347 See statement of Mr Martin Scheinin (HRC member) in “Summary Record of the First Part (Public) of the 487th Meeting”, (2003) UN Doc. CAT/C/SR.487, para. 3. 348 See “Summary record of the 1352nd meeting: Trinidad and Tobago”, (1996) U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/ SR.1352. 107