CCPR/C/125/D/2439/2014 was thus treated differently from persons who were baptised before the decision of the Immigration Service and who would thus have a right to appeal. He was also treated differently from Iranians who were baptised after the decision of the Board and thus sought to have their case reopened on the basis of their new sur place motive. This differential treatment is neither justified nor reasonable, because it was only after the decision of the Immigration Service that the author met Christians and decided to convert. 5.4 Lastly, while the decision of 16 January 2013 was made by the five members of the Refugee Appeals Board, the decision of 25 November 2014 was not made by the five members of the Board, but was signed by a person who was part of the Board’s legal staff and most likely was approved by the chairperson of the Board. Therefore, it was not the Board as such that made the decision to reject the author’s request to reopen his asylum case. The author should have benefited from a new oral hearing before the Danish Immigration Service, which would have allowed him to explain his new sur place motive and then have access to the Refugee Appeals Board as the second instance which would have taken a decision on the matter. Additional submission from the State party 6.1 On 14 July 2016, the State party provided further observations to the Committee, referring to its observations of 5 January 2015. As to the examination by the Danish authorities of the author’s application for asylum, the State party first observes that article 13 of the Covenant offers some of the protection afforded under article 14 of the Covenant, but not the right to appeal.30 However, article 13 does not confer a right to a court hearing. Thus, in Maroufidou v. Sweden, the Committee did not dispute that a mere administrative “review” of the expulsion order in question was compatible with article 13.31 6.2 The power to decide on the reopening of an asylum case is vested in the chairman of the panel that originally decided the appeal when, according to the contents of the request for reopening, there is no reason to assume that the Refugee Appeals Board will change its decision.32 The chairman is a judge. The Secretariat of the Refugee Appeals Board assists the Executive Committee in drafting decisions, which become final when endorsed by the chairman of the Board. Subsequently, the decision is signed by an employee of the Secretariat and delivered to the asylum seeker. Accordingly, both formally and in practice, decisions on reopening requests are made by the chairman of the relevant panel. The circumstance that a decision is signed by an employee of the Secretariat does not alter this fact. The legislation on the consideration of requests for the reopening of asylum cases is thus clear and leaves no doubt about the competence of the Refugee Appeals Board. There is no basis for claiming that decisions denying requests for reopening are made by the Secretariat of the Refugee Appeals Board. Therefore, the author has failed to establish a prima facie case for the purpose of admissibility of his communication under article 13 of the Covenant, given that it has not been sufficiently established that there are substantial grounds for believing that his rights under that article have been violated. This part of the communication should therefore be considered inadmissible as manifestly unfounded. 6.3 As to the alleged conversion by the author to Christianity, in its decisions of 16 January 2013 and 25 November 2014, the Refugee Appeals Board could not consider as a fact that the author’s conversion was genuine. The Board found that the conversion reflected grounds for asylum that had been fabricated for the occasion. The circumstance that an asylum seeker has been baptised and has participated in various religious activities does not independently render it probable that such person has in actual fact converted. The Refugee Appeals Board makes an overall assessment of all the circumstances of a case when a person claims to have converted.33 The statements made by church members in their 30 31 32 33 10 X and X v. Denmark, para. 6.3. Maroufidou v. Sweden (CCPR/C/12/D/58/1979). Section 53 (12) of the Danish Aliens Act and rule 48 of the Rules of Procedure of the Refugee Appeals Board. Including the asylum seeker’s educational background, knowledge of Christianity, motives for the conversion, considerations of the consequences of converting and participation in religious activities, as well as the asylum seeker’s general credibility and the entire process preceding the conversion.