In our opinion, the communication raises important issues under article 27 of the Covenant which should have been addressed on their merits, notwithstanding the declaration made by France under article 27. After the Committee decided not to reopen the issue of admissibility of the authors' claim under article 27, we are able to associate ourselves with the Committee's Views on the remaining aspects of the communication. Elizabeth Evatt [signed] Cecilia Medina Quiroga [signed] Fausto Pocar [signed] Martin Scheinin [signed] Maxwell Yalden [signed] [Original: English] B. Individual opinion by Committee members David Kretzmer and Thomas Buergenthal, cosigned by Nisuke Ando and Lord Colville (dissenting) 1. Unfortunately we are unable to join the Committee's view that violations of article 17 and 23 of the Covenant have been substantiated in the present communication. 2. This Committee has held in the past (communication Nos. 220/1987 and 222/1987, declared inadmissible on 8 November 1989) that the French declaration upon ratification of the Covenant regarding article 27, must be read as a reservation, according to which France is not bound by this article. Relying on this decision, the Committee held in its decision an admissibility of 30 June 1994, that the authors' communication was not admissible as regards an alleged violation of article 27. This decision, which was phrased in general terms, precludes us from examining whether the French declaration applies not only in Metropolitan France, but also in Overseas Territories, in which the State party itself concedes that special conditions may apply. 3. The authors' claim is that the State party has failed to protect an ancestral burial ground, which plays on important role in their heritage. It would seem that this claim could raise the issue of whether such failure by a State party involves denial of the right of religious or ethnic minorities, in community with other members of their group, to enjoy their own culture or to practise their own religion. However, for the reasons set out above, the Committee was precluded from examining this issue. Instead the Committee holds that allowing the building on the burial ground constitutes arbitrary interference with the authors' family and privacy. We cannot accept these propositions.