CCPR/C/130/D/2661/2015 Authors’ comments on the State party’s observations on admissibility 5.1 On 5 January 2016, the authors reiterated that their communication concerns the censorship of religious publications under the State party’s 2011 Law on Religious Activity and Religious Associations. At the suggestion of the State party, they requested the Committee to temporarily suspend its consideration to permit the parties to explore the possibility of reaching a settlement. The Committee, acting through its Special Rapporteur on new communications and interim measures, decided that the consideration of the communication be suspended until 18 July 2016.5 5.2 On 18 July 2016, the authors indicated that the issue at stake had not been resolved and asked the Committee to resume its consideration of the case. They challenge the State party’s assertion that the communication is inadmissible because it was not submitted “personally” by the individual complainants. Rule 99 (b) states that “normally, the communication should be submitted by the individual personally or by that individual’s representative”. The three individual authors have authorized two lawyers to act as their representatives in the proceedings before the Committee. The communication therefore fully complies with the Committee’s rules. 5.3 The authors further disagree with the State party’s assertion that the communication is inadmissible because neither Mr. Weaver nor Mr. Echtle are Kazakh citizens and are therefore not subject to its jurisdiction. These authors are members of the boards of directors of two foreign religious entities of Jehovah’s Witnesses, in the United States of America and Germany, that publish and print the religious literature of Jehovah’s Witnesses and then ship it to the State party for use by individual Jehovah’s Witnesses for study in the context of their family or their congregation. 5.4 The State party’s courts accepted that these two foreign legal entities were adversely affected by the authorities’ decisions refusing to permit the importation of that religious literature and had standing to appeal those decisions in court. The violation of rights occurred in the State party and was committed by its authorities; therefore the second and the third author have standing to challenge the violation of their rights before the Committee. 5.5 In any event, the State party does not dispute the first author’s standing to bring the communication as a Kazakh citizen. He participated directly in all domestic proceedings and his standing to challenge the actions of the State party was never questioned in the domestic courts. 5.6 Moreover, the authors rebut the State party’s assertion that the communication is inadmissible because they did not file a motion with the Office of the Prosecutor General requesting that it protest the case to the Supreme Court. They reiterate that they appealed directly to the Supreme Court and that their application for leave to appeal was dismissed. In this regard, they refer to the Committee’s jurisprudence, according to which a motion to the Office of the Prosecutor General requesting that it submit a supervisory protest to a Supreme Court is not an effective remedy.6 Furthermore, in this case, the Supreme Court had already refused leave to appeal. The authors have thus exhausted all available and effective domestic remedies. 5.7 Additionally, the authors recall that the Committee agreed to the temporary suspension of the communication for a period of six months, based on the request by the State party that the three authors submit motions to the Office of the Prosecutor General to call on it to protest to the Supreme Court against the decisions in their case. The authors did so. However, at the end of that six-month period, the Prosecutor General’s Office did not protest to the Supreme Court and took no decision on the case. 5 6 The State party, however, submitted its observations on the merits dated 28 April 2016 in a note verbale dated 2 May 2016. Gelazauskas v. Lithuania (CCPR/C/77/D/836/1998), para. 7.2; Bandajevsky v. Belarus (CCPR/C/86/D/1100/2002), para. 10.13; and Domukovsky et al. v. Georgia (CCPR/C/62/D/623/1995, 624/1995, 626/1995 and 627/1995), para. 18.11. 5