CCPR/C/115/D/2064/2011
Appendix I
[Original: Spanish]
Individual opinion of Committee member Víctor Manuel RodríguezRescia (partly dissenting)
1.
The present opinion concerns the decision of the Human Rights Committee on
communication No. 2064/2011 in relation to the facts described which demonstrate the
infringement by the State party of article 6, read in conjunction with article 2 (3), of the
Covenant, with respect to Bozo Mandić and of article 7, read separately and in
conjunction with article 2 (3), with respect to the author. What I do not agree with in
these Views is that the case has been treated as an execution and not as a forced
disappearance of the victim; that would also have given rise to a violation of articles 7
and 16 of the Covenant, read in conjunction with article 2 (3), with respect to the victim
and other rights relating to the author (arts. 17 and 23, read in conjunction with art. 2
(3)). In addition, there would have been an increase in the redress to be determined, apart
from the question of locating the remains of the disappeared person to undertake his
exhumation and return so that his relatives could organize a dignified burial.
2.
In my opinion, the facts of this communication constitute a forced disappearance
and not an execution, even though the facts described by the author (the son of the
victim) do not mean that the Committee should automatically regard them as accurate .
From the outset the case set out in the communication has been described as the forced
disappearance of Bozo Mandić in 1992; since that date his fate and whereabouts have
been unknown and it has not been possible to give him a dignified burial. Consequently,
the continuing effects of the forced disappearance still exist. Other facts which
demonstrate that the communication should have been treated as forced disappearance
are the following, as indicated in paragraphs 8.2, 8.3 and 8.4 of the communication:
(a)
On or about 10 June 1992, Bozo Mandić was wounded by a sniper while
he was in the courtyard in front of his house. His wife looked after him until she was
captured by members of the Bosnian Territorial Defence Army on about 16 June 1992
and taken to a concentration camp. In early July 1992, she was released in an exchange
of prisoners and tried to contact her husband, but in vain. For this reason she told her
son, Milan Mandić, that Bozo Mandić had disappeared;
(b)
The author, from the time he first decided to report the events, did so as a
case involving the forced disappearance of his father, as indicated in paragraph 2.2 of the
communication: (i) in July or August 1992 Milan Mandić reported the disappearance of
his father three times to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Pale;
(ii) the first written certification that the disappearance of Bozo Mandić had been
reported was issued by ICRC on 7 July 1995; (iii) on 17 March 1995 the author also
reported the disappearance of Bozo Mandić to the ICRC Central Tracing Agency in
Zagreb, which sent him a certificate on 13 May 1996;
(c)
The victim’s son, Milan Mandić, and other relatives of disappeared persons
of Bosnian Serb origin began to organize an association to ascertain the fate and
whereabouts of these disappeared persons. Among other activities, the association began
to investigate the possible sites of common graves in the Canton of Sarajevo.
3.
In contrast to these events in which the case is referred to as forced disappearance,
the first time the victims’ relatives were informed that Bozo Mandić might have been
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