CCPR/C/114/D/2389/2014 Appendix Individual opinion of Committee members Yuval Shany, Yuji Iwasawa and Konstantine Vardzelashvili (dissenting) 1. We regret that we are unable to join the majority on the Committee in finding that, in deciding to deport the author, Denmark would violate its obligations under article 7 of the Covenant. 2. In paragraph 7.2. of the present Views, the Committee recalls that it is “generally for the organs of States parties to the Covenant to examine the facts and evidence of the case in order to determine whether such a risk exists, unless it can be established that the assessment was arbitrary or amounted to a manifest error or denial of justice”. Yet, in paragraph 7.7, it holds that the State party “did not sufficiently take into account the totality of facts as exposed in paragraph 7.6. above, including the potential personal risk for the author in case he is removed to the Islamic Republic of Iran”. 3. In past cases in which the decision of State organs to deport an individual was found by the Committee to run contrary to the Covenant, the Committee attempted to base its position on inadequacies in the domestic decision-making process, which had been taken by the domestic organs of the State party, leading to the decision to deport. Such inadequacies consisted, at times, of serious procedural flaws in the conduct of the domestic review proceedings,a failure by domestic authorities to consider an important piece of information, b or on the inability of the State party to provide a reasonable justification for its decision. c In the present case, however, after reviewing the same body of evidence that was presented to the domestic organs, the Committee simply disagrees with their conclusion that, on the whole, a real risk of a serious violation was not established. It has not been persuasively claimed before the Committee that the relevant domestic organs did not assign proper weight to any specific piece of evidence presented by the author; nor was it claimed that there was any procedural flaw in their conduct. Furthermore, the Committee itself acknowledges that none of the circumstances of the case gives rise in itself to a real risk that the author be subject to torture; it is just that in evaluating the totality of the facts and evidence, the Committee would have opted for a different substantive outcome. 4. We thus find it impossible to reconcile the holding of the Committee in this case with the applicable legal standard of deference to the organs of State parties in evaluating facts and evidence, which reflects the clear procedural advantages over the Committee that is enjoyed by local authorities, who have direct access to witnesses, in evaluating facts and evidence about direct and personal risk. We therefore dissent from the position taken by the majority on the Committee. a b c 14 See, for example, communication No. 1051/2002, Ahani v. Canada, Views adopted on 29 March 2004, para. 10.8. See, for example, communication No. 1908/2009, X v. Republic of Korea, Views adopted on 25 March 2014, para. 11.5. See, for example, communication No. 1222/2003, Byahuranga v. Denmark, Views adopted on 1 November 2004, paras. 11.3 and 11.4.