A/HRC/45/13/Add.3 to comply with their legal obligations. According to the Law, this is a means for families to exercise their right to know the truth and seek protection before the Constitutional Court.192 70. In relation to the lack of information surrounding the fate and whereabouts of disappeared persons in the course of the civil war in Tajikistan, the Working Group indicated that the Government should adopt a truth-seeking State policy and develop specific mechanisms, supported by dedicated resources, for dealing with disappearances caused by and related to the civil war. This should include the creation of a national register to collect information on disappeared persons, the search for, mapping and conservation of burial sites, and the exhumation, identification and return of identified remains to families.193 G. Burden of Proof regarding effective investigations 71. The European Court does not revert the burden of proof with regard to an alleged violation of the substantive limb of Article 3 of the ECHR in respect of a disappeared person requesting applicants to prove beyond reasonable doubt that their relative has in fact been tortured.194 However, such proof results from “the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact.”195 72. The European Court stated in Avkhadova and others v. Russia, (paragraph 84): “Detained persons are in a vulnerable position and the obligation on the authorities to account for the treatment of a detained individual is particularly stringent where that individual dies or disappears thereafter. Where the events at issue lie wholly or to a large extent within the exclusive knowledge of the authorities, as in the case of persons under their control in detention, strong presumptions of fact will arise in respect of injuries and death occurring during that detention. Indeed, the burden of proof may be regarded as resting on the authorities to provide a satisfactory and convincing explanation.” 73. The European Court in Bazorkina v. Russia, (paragraph 106): “As to the facts that are in dispute, the Court recalls its jurisprudence confirming the standard of proof “beyond reasonable doubt” in its assessment of evidence. Such proof may follow from the coexistence of sufficiently strong, clear and concordant inferences or of similar unrebutted presumptions of fact. In this context, the conduct of the parties when evidence is being obtained has to be taken into account.” 74. The Inter-American Court considers that crucial facts clarifying the circumstances of enforced disappearances are in the control of the State, which may hinder the author of the complaint to access evidence.196 Therefore, the Inter-American Court held that the burden of proof shifts to the respondent State, if the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights demonstrated circumstantial evidence linking a systematic pattern of enforced disappearances and a specific complaint in relation to a disappeared person. In the event of classification of relevant information by the State necessary for the disclosure of the whereabouts or the fate of the disappeared person, the Inter-American Court stated in the Gomes Lund case, that the burden of proof is on the State to provide reasons for the classification of this information.197 75. The Inter-American Court stated in Gomes-Lund et al. (“Guerrilha do Araguaia”) v. Brazil (paragraph 230): [A]ll denials of information must be motivated and founded, to which the State is responsible for the burden of proof on the impossibility of presenting said information, and given doubts or empty legal arguments, the right to access to information will be favored. 192 193 194 195 196 197 34 Bosnia and Herzegovina, Law on Missing Persons of Bosnia and Herzegovina of 21 October 2004, “Official Gazette of BiH”, No. 50/05 (2004). A/HRC/45/13/Add.1 para. 37. European Court of Human Rights, Zaurbekova and Zaurbekova v. Russia, Application No. 27183/03, 22 January 2009, paras. 91 and 92. European Court of Human Rights, Ireland v. the United Kingdom, Application No. 5310/71, 18 January 1978, para. 161. IACHR, Velásquez-Rodríguez v. Honduras (see footnote 123) para.123. IACHR, Gomes-Lund et al. (“Guerrilha do Araguaia”) v. Brazil (see footnote 152) para. 230.