E/C.12/69/D/48/2018
given that housing is a limited resource. The author has been offered housing solutions that
she has repeatedly declined and has not completed her housing application. The State party
concludes that the communication does not disclose any violation of the Covenant and
requests that the Committee discontinue its consideration of it.
Author’s comments on admissibility and the merits
7.1
On 6 January 2020, the author reiterated that she has been in a completely precarious
situation since her eviction. She also states that the authorities have made no specific offers
of accommodation or housing beyond six months’ temporary accommodation in a shelter,
where there are many conflicts among residents and which would not be suitable for a family
with minor children.
7.2
The author also states that, prior to the trial in which she was convicted of a minor
offence, the financial institution that had previously owned the property had brought a
complaint against her in 2016. The complaint was provisionally dismissed on 4 August 2016
because there was insufficient evidence to prosecute. On 3 September 2018, the proceedings
were definitively dismissed because criminal liability had been extinguished. The author
argues that the consideration of the complaint filed against her by the new owner on 21
November 2017 constitutes a violation of the principle of non bis in idem.
7.3
The author states that she has not been granted the housing that she has applied for by
either the city council or the Community of Madrid, despite being a single mother with a
recognized 35 per cent disability, and that this is because she has been discriminated against
because of her Roma ethnicity.
7.4
The author reports that she has lost the financial benefits that she had received for
being registered with a government office and that this constitutes a violation of article 11 (1)
of the Covenant because she is a woman with a disability and of Roma ethnicity.
B.
Committee’s consideration of admissibility
8.1
Before considering any claim contained in a communication, the Committee must
decide, in accordance with rule 9 of its provisional rules of procedure under the Optional
Protocol, whether or not the communication is admissible.
8.2
The Committee recalls that article 3 (1) of the Optional Protocol precludes it from
considering a communication unless it has ascertained that all available domestic remedies
have been exhausted. The State party argues that the author has not exhausted all domestic
remedies because she did not apply for social housing before beginning her illegal occupation
of the property and, after moving in, did not submit the documentation requested by the
Autonomous Community of Madrid to complete her application. The Committee is of the
view that, for the purposes of article 3 (1) of the Optional Protocol, “available domestic
remedies” are all remedies available to the author in direct relation with the events that
initially gave rise to the claimed violation and that, prima facie, may be reasonably considered
as effective for remedying the claimed violations of the Covenant. The Committee notes that
the principal complaint put forward by the author in her communication is that her eviction
would contravene the Covenant because she has no alternative housing. Therefore, the
remedies that must be exhausted are, first of all, those directly related to the eviction, such as
remedies aimed at preventing or delaying the eviction or serving to notify the courts of the
lack of alternative housing. In this connection, the Committee notes that the author exhausted
all the available remedies aimed at preventing or delaying the eviction, since, at the time she
submitted her communication, she had appealed against the judgment of conviction that
ordered her to vacate the property, thereby exhausting this avenue, and had requested that the
eviction order be stayed and that social services be duly informed, given her lack of
alternative housing. With respect to the application for social housing filed with the
Autonomous Community of Madrid, the Committee notes that, according to the State party,
persons such as the author who are occupying a property without a legal right to do so cannot
apply to this body for social housing. The Committee therefore finds that the State party has
failed to sufficiently demonstrate that this remedy was available and would have been
effective in the circumstances of the present case. Consequently, the Committee finds that
GE.21-04761
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