CCPR/C/123/D/2747/2016 1.2 The first Optional Protocol to the Covenant entered into force for France on 17 May 1984. France has entered a reservation. 2 1.3 On 5 September 2016, the Special Rapporteur on new communications and interim measures informed the State party and the author of his decision to consider the admissibility of the communication separately from the merits, pursuant to rule 97, paragraph 3, of the Committee’s rules of procedure. The facts as submitted by the author 2.1 The author is a Muslim and wears a niqab (full face veil). On 6 October 2011, she was stopped for an identity check while wearing her niqab on the street in Nantes. She was then prosecuted and convicted of the minor offence of wearing a garment to conceal her face in public. 2.2 Consequently, the author was convicted on 26 March 2012 and was ordered by the community court in Nantes 3 to pay a fine of 150 euros, the maximum penalty for the offence in question, which was established by Act No. 2010-1192 of 11 October 2010. Article 1 of the Act stipulates that: “No one may, in a public space, wear any apparel intended to conceal the face.” Article 2 of the Act, which specifies where the law is applicable, provides that “a public space shall mean public streets and walkways and places open to the public or designated for a public service”. It also establishes that “the prohibition set out in article 1 does not apply if such clothing is prescribed or authorized by legislative or regulatory provisions …, is justified for health reasons or on professional grounds, or is part of sporting, artistic or traditional festivities or events”. 2.3 Article 3 of the Act sets out the penalties for this minor offence: “a fine corresponding to offences of category two” and/or “mandatory attendance at a citizenship course”. The Act has also established the more serious offence of forcing a person to conceal the face, which has been included in article 225-4-10 of the Criminal Code, as follows: “The act, by any person, of forcing one or several other persons to conceal the face, by means of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of authority or of power, by reason of their sex, shall be punishable by one year of imprisonment and a fine of 30,000 euros. When such an act is committed against a minor, the penalties shall be increased to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 60,000 euros.” 2.4 The author is challenging, on the basis of article 18 of the Covenant, the prohibition against concealing the face in public areas, which deprives those wishing to wear a full-face veil of the possibility to do so. 2.5 As for the steps taken by the author, as the decision of the community court judge was not subject to appeal, she filed an application for cassation with the criminal chamber of the Court of Cassation. She argued that Act No. 2010-1192, which prohibited the wearing in public places of garments to conceal the face and established the legal basis for the offence for which she had been convicted, was contrary to article 9 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention on Human Rights), which protected the right to manifest one’s religion. On the merits, she also invoked a claim that the law was discriminatory in nature, inviting the Court of Cassation to ascertain whether it “undermined pluralism by discriminating against a minority practice of the Muslim religion”. 2 3 2 Upon ratification, France issued the following reservation: “France makes a reservation to article 5, paragraph 2 (a), specifying that the Human Rights Committee shall not have competence to consider a communication from an individual if the same matter is being examined or has already been considered under another procedure of international investigation or settlement.” Community court judges have jurisdiction to hear civil cases involving disputes of up to 4,000 euros. For criminal cases, community courts can hear cases involving minor offences of the first four categories. Article 15 of the Act modernizing the justice system of the twenty-first century called for the community courts to be eliminated by 1 July 2017. On that date, for civil cases, ongoing proceedings that were before the community courts were transferred to a court of minor jurisdiction (tribunal d’instance).