The Human Rights Committee can:
1. Examine your complaint about a possible human rights violation
It can do this in the states which have ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Optional Protocol. Moldova is included among those states.
If your complaint is accepted, the Committee can determine whether Moldovan state authorities have violated your human rights. If the Committee concludes that there has been a violation of your rights, it can recommend that the State should provide you with a remedy for that violation. The State is obliged to comply with these recommendations. The State will have to report back to the Committee on how the remedy has been implemented.
2. Request interim measures to prevent irreversible harm
The Committee may request that interim measures should be adopted in the interest of the parties, or in the interest of the proper conduct of proceedings. You may ask the Committee to request measures at any given time once it has received your application. The purpose of interim measures is to prevent the risk of irreparable harm pending the examination of your complaint by the Committee.
Interim measures requested by the Committee are not binding, even though the failure of the State to implement such measures is a breach of its obligation to follow the process of individual complaints in good faith.
example The Committee may request that a State suspend the expulsion of an applicant who fears for his life if he was to be deported to another country.
The Human Rights Committee cannot:
The Committee can only carry out those tasks, which it is allowed to do under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Optional Protocol. As an international body it has very specific functions and it does not have the same power as higher courts in Moldova. Because of this it cannot:
- require the state to give you a specific amount of money as compensation
- examine complaints about the actions of private companies and persons
- revoke or change the decisions of courts or state institutions
- re-examine the evidence of national court cases
- punish state officials or private individuals
- annul or amend Moldovan laws