CAT/C/35/D/254/2004
page 4
authorization, the “no-objection certificate”, from the secret service. He would thus be liable to
five years’ imprisonment, and would also be liable to seven years’ imprisonment for having
made use of his official passport.
3.3
The complainant claims that his personal fears of being tortured were consistently
substantiated during the review of his application for asylum. He also asserts that the Federal
Office for Refugees at no time cast doubt on the details he supplied to the Office of his treatment
in Pakistan.
State party’s observations on admissibility and merits
4.1
By a note verbale of 1 November 2004 the State party indicated that it would not contest
admissibility, and on 9 March 2005 formulated observations on the merits. Firstly, it recalled
the reasons why, following thorough consideration of the complainant’s allegations, the
Asylum Appeal Commission, like the Federal Office for Refugees, was unconvinced that the
complainant ran a serious risk of being persecuted if returned to Pakistan.
4.2
The State party recalled that the Appeal Commission, in its decision of 7 April 2004,
noted that the complainant had apparently not encountered even the slightest difficulty in leaving
Pakistan through Karachi airport with his official government passport. According to the
Commission, that showed that at the time of his departure the complainant ran no risk of being
subjected to ill-treatment. The Commission then considered whether such a risk had
materialized in the intervening period and concluded that this was not the case since the house
arrest imposed on the former Minister had been lifted in December 2000.
4.3
According to the Asylum Appeal Commission, there were other factors casting doubt on
the assertion that the complainant ran a risk of ill-treatment in the event of return to Pakistan.
The Commission considered that the family links between the persons cited by the complainant
before the Commission meant that their statements could not be relied on with any degree of
confidence. Furthermore the complainant never demonstrated that he had been politically active.
4.4
The Asylum Appeal Commission, on reviewing an appeal by the complainant in which
he asserted that he was in peril of criminal prosecution owing to his illegal emigration and his
improper use of his official passport, in a decision of 23 June 2004 again rejected the appeal, on
the ground that the risk was already known to the complainant at the time of the ordinary
proceedings and that the new documents produced could have been submitted during those
proceedings.
4.5
Secondly, the State party considered the merits of the decision by the Asylum Appeal
Commission in the light of article 3 of the Convention and the Committee’s jurisprudence. The
State party notes that the complainant merely recalled before the Committee the grounds cited
before the national authorities and cited no new evidence for reconsideration of the Appeal
Commission’s decisions of 7 April and 23 June 2004.
4.6
Having recalled the Committee’s jurisprudence and its general comment No. 1 on the
implementation of article 3 of the Convention, the State party fully endorses the grounds cited by
the Asylum Appeal Commission substantiating its rejection of the complainant’s application for
asylum and upholding his expulsion. It recalls the Committee’s jurisprudence whereby the