members of groups especially at risk of being tortured
because of their ethnicity, indigenous status, gender, sexual
orientation, transgender identity, age, religious belief or
affiliation, political or other opinion, national or social origin,
mental or other disability, health or economic status.
6. Under Article 14 of the CAT, all States Parties are required
to “ensure in its legal system that the victim of an act of
torture obtains redress and has an enforceable right to fair
and adequate compensation, including the means for as full
rehabilitation as possible.”75 The government should take
necessary measures in this regard. For this matter, a
mechanism should also be developed for ensuring the
participation of the victim in the reparation process, and the
restoration of dignity of the victim should be the overarching
objective in the provision of redress.
75
54
See, section 1 of the Working Document of the Committee against Torture on
Article 14 (46th session, May 9 - June 3, 2011) The Committee against Torture
considers that the term “redress” in article 14 encompasses the concepts of
“reparation” and “effective remedy”. Victims are persons who individually or
collectively suffered harm, including physical or mental injury, emotional
suffering, economic loss or substantial impairment of their fundamental rights,
through acts or omissions that constitute violations of the Convention. A
person should be considered a victim regardless whether the perpetrator of
the violation is identified, apprehended, prosecuted or convicted. According to
the working document of the Committee against Torture, the term ‘victim’ also
includes the immediate family or dependants of the victim and persons who
have suffered harm in intervening to assist victims in distress or to prevent
victimisation.