CAT/C/46/D/352/2008 he had supplied the complainant with P.K.K. newspapers – have in fact already been brought to the attention of the F.O.R. on previous appeals. As the complainant refused to pay the fees, the F.O.R. rejected the request for revision on 19 May 2008. The complaint 3. The complainants claim that they would be at risk of being subjected to torture if returned to Turkey, in particular the complainant, because of his past beatings by the police and because the Turkish authorities believe that he is a member of the P.K.K. State party’s observations on admissibility 4.1 On 28 October 2008, the State party explained that the complainants have applied for asylum on 3 September 2003. Their request was rejected by the former Federal Office for Refugees (at present called Federal Office for Migrations, F.O.M.) on 29 December 2003. An appeal against this decision was filed with the former Federal Commission on Asylum (replaced in 2007 by the Federal Administrative Tribunal, F.A.T.). Subsequently, the complainants have introduced several requests for reconsideration and/or revision. The fifth request for a revision was made on 7 April 2008, before the F.A.T. On 17 April 2008, the competent judge has rejected the complainants’ request for legal assistance. The judge considered the revision request to have minimal chances of success, if not to be abusive, and ordered the complainants to pay 2 400 CHF as guarantee fees. As the complainants did not pay the fees, their request for revision was rejected by the F.A.T., on 19 May 2009. 4.2 The State party recalls that the Committee may not examine communications if domestic remedies have not been exhausted. It refers to the Committee’s jurisprudence and recalls that States’ authorities must be given an opportunity to assess new elements of proof before these are submitted to the Committee under article 22 of the Convention. In the present case, the decision by a judge on the prospect of success of the complainant’s appeal or to request and advance payment does not, according to the State party, pre-judge the case. If the advance payment is made, the judge can decide on the merits of the case only after consultation with a second judge. If the two judges disagree, the decision has to be taken by a commission of three judges. In addition, nothing in the present communication indicates that the request for an advance payment prevents the complainant form exhausting domestic remedies. Thus, in the present communication, the complainant has not exhausted the available domestic remedies, and the communication should be declared inadmissible. Complainant’s comments to the State party’s observations 5.1 The complainants submitted their comments on the State party’s observations on 5 January 2009. They note, first, that according to the State party, they would have had a chance to succeed with their motion for revision of 4 April 2008. They claim, however, that there was no guarantee that the judge in charge of their case would not have declared the case inadmissible once the payment of the 2 400 CHF is made – a particularly high sum for the complainants without any income. They claim that the request to pay the above sum was intended to bar them finishing their appeal in the asylum procedure. In addition, the judge wrote to them that the petition (appeal) in question was launched “mutwillig” in German, i.e. it was not totally unfounded but was, in a way, malicious. The judge has also declared that the grounds of their petition (…) and the evidence to support it are not credible and would not lead to a modification of the previous decisions – i.e. not to grant them refugee status. According to the complainants, this unequivocally meant that their appeal simply had no prospect of success. 5.2 The complainants note further that the State party has not focused on these specific circumstances or the statements of the judge, but limited itself in quoting the legal provisions in general. The reality, according to the complainants, is that the asylum judges 4

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