CCPR/C/126/D/2302/2013
the absence of detailed explanations from the authors and their counsels, the allegations
have been insufficiently substantiated for the purposes of admissibility even though the
State party has not refuted the authors’ allegations (para. 6.4).
7.
This passage is difficult to understand. On the one hand, the Committee itself
recognizes that the domestic legal system does not offer any remedy. Therefore, it is not
logical to consider the absence of a complaint to the national authorities as evidence of nonsubstantiation of the claim. The State party, which does not defend itself, also reports no
improvements in its national procedures. Moreover, as the labour camp is located in an area
subject to extreme weather conditions that have been recognized as such by the Committee
in the above-mentioned cases, as well as suffering from a lack of hygiene – which is not
refuted by the State party – it seems odd to require the authors to demonstrate having been
“personally” subjected to such conditions, given that this extreme and unhealthy
environment is imposed on all the detainees at the labour camp. The fact that the authors in
this case have not contracted tuberculosis is irrelevant inasmuch as the Committee, in its
previous decisions, has attached importance to the severe weather conditions associated
with the intense heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter, as well as the failure to
separate healthy inmates from those who have the disease.5
8.
For these reasons, not only should the authors’ claim under article 7 have been
declared admissible, but the conditions of detention should have led the Committee to find
a violation of the Covenant.
5
8
Matyakubov v. Turkmenistan (CCPR/C/117/D/2224/2012), para. 7.3.
GE.19-19105