BELGIUM

Follow-up - Jurisprudence

Action by Treaty Bodies

CCPR, A/64/40, vol. I (2009)

VI.	FOLLOW UP ACTIVITIES UNDER THE OPTIONAL PROTOCOL

230.	In July 1990, the Committee established a procedure for the monitoring of follow-up to its Views under article 5, paragraph 4, of the Optional Protocol, and created the mandate of the Special Rapporteur for follow-up on Views to this effect. Ms. Ruth Wedgwood has been the Special Rapporteur since July 2009 (ninety-sixth session).

231.	In 1991, the Special Rapporteur began to request follow-up information from States parties. Such information had been systematically requested in respect of all Views with a finding of a violation of Covenant rights; 543 Views out of the 681 Views adopted since 1979 concluded that there had been a violation of the Covenant.

232.	All attempts to categorize follow-up replies by States parties are inherently imprecise and subjective: it accordingly is not possible to provide a neat statistical breakdown of follow-up replies. Many follow-up replies received may be considered satisfactory, in that they display the willingness of the State party to implement the Committee's recommendations or to offer the complainant an appropriate remedy. Other replies cannot be considered satisfactory because they either do not address the Committee's Views at all or relate only to certain aspects of them. Some replies simply note that the victim has filed a claim for compensation outside statutory deadlines and that no compensation can therefore be paid. Still other replies indicate that there is no legal obligation on the State party to provide a remedy, but that a remedy will be afforded to the complainant on an ex gratia basis.

233.	The remaining follow-up replies challenge the Committee's Views and findings on factual or legal grounds, constitute much belated submissions on the merits of the complaint, promise an investigation of the matter considered by the Committee or indicate that the State party will not, for one reason or another, give effect to the Committee's recommendations.

234.	In many cases, the Secretariat has also received information from complainants to the effect that the Committee's Views have not been implemented. Conversely, in rare instances, the petitioner has informed the Committee that the State party had in fact given effect to the Committee's recommendations, even though the State party had not itself provided that information.

235.	The present annual report adopts the same format for the presentation of follow-up information as the last annual report. The table below displays a complete picture of follow-up replies from States parties received up to the ninety-sixth session (13-31 July 2009), in relation to Views in which the Committee found violations of the Covenant. Wherever possible, it indicates whether follow-up replies are or have been considered as satisfactory or unsatisfactory, in terms of their compliance with the Committee's Views, or whether the dialogue between the State party and the Special Rapporteur for follow-up on Views continues. The notes following a number of case entries convey an idea of the difficulties in categorizing follow-up replies.

236.	Follow-up information provided by States parties and by petitioners or their representatives subsequent to the last annual report (A/63/40) is set out in annex IX to volume II of the present annual report.

State party and number of cases with violation	Communication number, author and relevant Committee report	Follow-up response received from State party	Satisfactory response	Unsatisfactory response	No response	Follow-
up dialogue ongoing
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Belgium (1)	1472/2006, Sayadi et al.

A/64/40	X
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A/64/40 vol. II (2009)

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Annex IX

Follow-up of the Human Rights Committee on individual communications under the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

This report sets out all information provided by States parties and authors or their counsel since the last annual report (A/63/40).

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State party	Belgium
Case	Sayadi and Vinck, 1472/2006
Views adopted on	22 October 2008
Issues and violations found	Presence of authors' names on the United Nations sanctions committee's list - articles 12 and 17 of the Covenant.

Remedy recommended	The State party is bound to provide the authors with an effective remedy. Although the State party is itself not competent to remove the authors' names from the sanctions committee's list, the Committee is nevertheless of the view that the State party has the duty to do all it can to have their names removed from the list as soon as possible, to provide the authors with some form of compensation and to make public the requests for removal.

Due date for State party response	1 June 2009
Date of State party response	None
State party response	None
Other	On 20 July 2009, the Secretariat received information to the effect that the Security Council Committee established pursuant to resolution 1267 (1999) concerning Al-Qaida and the Taliban and associated individuals and entities finally decided to remove Mr. Sayadi and his wife from the sanctions list.
Author's comments	None
Committee's Decision	While welcoming the removal of the authors from the sanctions list, the Committee awaits information from the State party on the full implementation of its Views. The Committee considers that the follow-up dialogue is ongoing.
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