Iceland, China, New Zealand and Morocco have been criticised for their lack of compliance with this article of the Convention.94 58. In PE v. France, 95 France argued before the Committee against Torture that nothing in UNCAT imposed upon it an obligation to ascertain the circumstances in which information provided by another State (in this case Spain) was obtained before using the information in its domestic extradition processes. This implied, in part, that the person alleging information was obtained by torture must prove the allegation. The Committee rejected these submissions, holding that states are obliged “to ascertain whether or not statements constituting part of the evidence of a procedure for which it is competent have been made as a result of torture.” Once the complainant alleged that statements used against him were obtained as the result of torture, “the State party had the obligation to ascertain the veracity of such allegations.”96 59. The Human Rights Committee has also produced relevant jurisprudence with regard to the burden of proof. In its General Comment No. 32, it opined that “domestic law must ensure that statements and confessions obtained in violation of Article 7 of the Covenant are excluded from evidence… and the burden is on the State to prove that the statements made by the accused have been given of their own free will.”97 60. The Human Rights Committee confirmed its stance on this issue in its Views on the individual communication of Kurbanova v Tajikistan: “The Committee has noted the author's fairly detailed description of beatings and other ill-treatment that her son was subjected to. She has furthermore identified by name some of the individuals alleged to have been responsible for her son's illtreatment. In reply, the State party has confined itself to stating that these allegations were neither raised during the investigation nor in court. The Committee recalls, with regard to the burden of proof, that this cannot rest alone with the author of a communication, especially considering that the author and the State party do not always have equal access to evidence and that frequently the State party alone has access to relevant information. Further, the mere fact that no allegation of torture was made in the domestic appeal proceedings cannot as such be held against the alleged victim if it is proposed, as in the present case, that such an allegation was in fact made during the actual trial but was neither recorded nor acted upon. In the light of the details given by the author on the alleged ill-treatment, the unavailability of a trial transcript and the absence of any further explanations from the State party, due weight must be given to the author's allegations. Noting in particular that the State party has failed to investigate the author's allegations, which were brought to the State party's authorities' attention, the Committee considers that the facts as submitted disclose a violation of article 7 of the Covenant.”98 61. The Human Rights Committee went on to confirm and expand upon this jurisprudence in subsequent Individual Communications. In Singarasa v Sri Lanka, it explained that the burden of proof should never fall on the individual: “However, the Committee also notes that the burden of proving whether the confession was voluntary was on the accused. This is undisputed by the State party since it is so provided in Section 16 of the PTA. Even if, as argued by the State party, the threshold of proof is "placed very low" and "a mere possibility of involuntariness" would suffice to sway 94 As above, pp 508-509. PE v France, Communication 193/2001, Views of 21 November 2002. 96 As above, at § 6.3. 97 See note 49, at § 41. 98 Kurbanova v Tajikistan, Communication 1096/2002, Views of 12 November 2003, § 7.4. 95 14