basis of the information contained in the complainant’s submission and may be reviewed, at the
initiative of the State party, in the light of information and comments received from the State
party and any further comments, if any, from the complainant. Some States parties have adopted
the practice of systematically requesting the Rapporteur to withdraw his request for interim
measures of protection. The Rapporteur has taken the position that such requests need only be
addressed if based on new and pertinent information which was not available to him when he
took his initial decision on interim measures.
77. The Committee has conceptualized the formal and substantive criteria applied by the
Rapporteur for new complaints and interim measures in granting or rejecting requests for interim
measures of protection. Apart from timely submission of a complainant’s request for interim
measures of protection under rule 108, paragraph 1, of the Committee’s rules of procedure, the
basic admissibility criteria set out in article 22, paragraphs 1 to 5, of the Convention, must be
met by the complainant for the Rapporteur to act on his or her request. The requirement of
exhaustion of domestic remedies may be dispensed with if the only remedies available to the
complainant are without suspensive effect, i.e. remedies that, for instance, do not automatically
stay the execution of an expulsion order to a State where the complainant might be subjected to
torture, or if there is a risk of immediate deportation of the complainant after the final rejection
of his or her asylum application. In such cases, the Rapporteur may request the State party to
refrain from deporting a complainant while his or her complaint is under consideration by the
Committee, even before domestic remedies have been exhausted. As for substantive criteria to be
applied by the Rapporteur, a complaint must have a substantial likelihood of success on the
merits for it to be concluded that the alleged victim would suffer irreparable harm in the event of
his or her deportation.
78. The Committee is aware that a number of States parties have expressed concern that
interim measures of protection have been requested in too large a number of cases alleging
violations of article 3 of the Convention, especially where the complainant’s deportation is
alleged to be imminent, and that there are insufficient factual elements to warrant a request for
interim measures. The Committee takes such expressions of concern seriously and is prepared to
discuss them with the States parties concerned. In this regard it wishes to point out that in many
cases, requests for interim measures are lifted by the Special Rapporteur, on the basis of
pertinent State party information received that obviates the need for interim measures.
C. Progress of work
79. At the time of adoption of the present report the Committee had registered,
since 1989, 384 complaints concerning 29 States parties. Of them, 95 complaints had been
discontinued and 59 had been declared inadmissible. The Committee had adopted final decisions
on the merits on 158 complaints and found violations of the Convention in 48 of them.
Sixty-seven complaints were pending for consideration and four were suspended, pending
exhaustion of domestic remedies.
80. At its forty-first session, the Committee declared inadmissible complaint No. 323/2007
(P.K. v. Spain). The complainant alleged that Spain had violated article 1, paragraph 1,
articles 11, 12 and 13, article 14, paragraph 1, and article 16, paragraph 1, of the Convention. He
further claimed a violation of article 3 because, if returned to India, the alleged victims would be
134
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents