CERD/C/71/D/40/2007 Page 4 treatment based on ethnicity might have occurred in isolated cases, but that this was not the general practice of the school. By decision of 1 September 2004, the Complaints Committee considered that, in that particular case, a staff member of the school had followed discriminatory instructions and thus violated section 3 of the Danish Act on Ethnic Equal Treatment. It specified, however, that section 3 was not violated by the school as such. The Committee further considered that section 8 of the referred Act (prohibition of reprisals for complaints aimed at enforcing the principle of equal treatment) did not appear to have been violated, although it noted that it did not have the competence to interrogate witnesses where evidence was lacking. It concluded that this issue was for the Danish tribunals to determine and recommended that free legal aid be granted for the case to be brought before a court. 2.5 A civil claim was filed in the City Court of Copenhagen, seeking compensation of DKK 100,000 (13,500€ approximately) for moral damages incurred as a result of ethnic discrimination. On 29 November 2005, the City Court considered that the evidence produced did not prove that either the school or its staff members were willing to meet discriminatory requests from employers and that, therefore, there was no reason to set aside the inspector’s statement. It further found that the petitioner was not among the students to whom a traineeship was to be allocated on 8 September 2003 as he was undergoing an aptitude test between 1 September and 1 October after having failed the first main course and could only subsequently be considered for a traineeship, which he obtained as of 6 October 2003. It concluded that the petitioner could not be considered to have been subjected to differential treatment on the basis of his race or ethnic origin, nor that he was a victim of reprisals by the defendant because of the complaint filed by him. The petitioner contends that, under Act on Ethnic Equal Treatment, the burden of proof should have been on the staff member and not on him. 2.6 The petitioner appealed the judgement of the Copenhagen City Court to the High Court of Eastern Denmark. He did not obtain legal aid to appeal the case and DACoRD subsequently assisted him to appeal the case. One of the witnesses called before the High Court was a school staff member in charge of contacts between the school and potential employers. He stated that he had chosen not to send a student of ethnic origin other than Danish to the company, because “the school had received before negative feedbacks from students of other ethnic origin who had been training with the company. They had felt maltreated because employees at the company had used abusive language.” The school argued that the complainant had not experienced reprisals as a consequence of his complaint, but that he simply was not qualified enough to be sent for training. In the petitioner’s view, this argumentation is irrelevant, since the school had already admitted to have refrained from sending students of an ethnic background other than Danish to certain employers. The High Court decided that it had not been proved that the complainant had been subjected to discrimination or had experienced reprisals as a consequence of his complaint and confirmed the judgement of the City Court. According to the complainant, the High Court based its decision on the statement made by the school that the complainant did not have the necessary qualifications to be sent to training. The school was acquitted and the complainant was required to pay the procedural costs amounting to DKK 25.000 (3,300€ approximately). This amount was covered by DACoRD.