CAT/C/68/D/815/2017
United Nations
Convention against Torture
and Other Cruel, Inhuman
or Degrading Treatment
or Punishment
Distr.: General
3 January 2020
Original: English
Committee against Torture
Decision adopted by the Committee under article 22 of the
Convention, concerning communication No. 815/2017*, **
Communication submitted by:
Vasanthakumar Balakrishnan (represented by
counsel, John Sweeney)
Alleged victim:
The complainant
State party:
Australia
Date of complaint:
24 January 2017 (initial submission)
Substantive issue:
Risk of torture upon deportation to Sri Lanka
At its meeting on 15 November 2019, the Committee, not having received comments
from the complainant’s counsel on the State party’s observations, despite sending a reminder
to that effect, and taking into account that the counsel subsequently withdrew the complaint
because he lost contact with the complainant, decided to discontinue the examination of
communication No. 815/2017.
* Adopted by the Committee at its sixty-eighth session (11 November–6 December 2019).
** The following members of the Committee participated in the examination of the communication:
Essadia Belmir, Felice Gaer, Abdelwahab Hani, Claude Heller Rouassant, Jens Modvig, Ana Racu,
Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón, Sébastien Touzé and Bakhtiyar Tuzmukhamedov.
GE.20-00037(E)