CCPR/C/124/D/2668/2015 Author’s comments on the State party’s observations on the merits 3.1 The author submitted comments on the State party’s observations on 28 November 2016. The author reiterates that the Supreme Administrative Court decisions of 30 September 2015 violated the rights of the author and her fellow members of the Sami indigenous people under article 26, both on its own and in conjunction with article 1, of the Covenant. A close analysis of the 182 Court rulings of 30 September 2015, in which 93 persons were added to the electoral roll and the remaining applications rejected, shows that the Court ignored the explicit statutory criteria spelled out in section 3 of the Act on the Sami Parliament and applied its own indeterminate construction of “overall consideration”, resulting in lawlessness, unforeseeability, arbitrariness and, ultimately, discrimination, as identical cases were treated differently and different cases identically. The rulings did not only adversely affect persons whose applications were rejected as a result of being treated differently from others who were admitted. The author and all Sami were affected by this arbitrariness, which hinders the capacity of the Sami Parliament to represent the Sami indigenous people and its individual members, and violates article 26, read in conjunction with article 1, of the Covenant. 3.2 The main principles enshrined in the Act on the Sami Parliament show that the Parliament’s effective functioning and capacity to adequately represent the views of the Sami indigenous people are essential for the State party’s implementation of articles 25 and 27 of the Covenant. The Parliament is an important instrument for the Sami, individually and collectively, to enjoy and exercise their rights under articles 25 and 27 of the Covenant. Section 9 of the Act, in particular, imposes upon all authorities an obligation to negotiate with the Sami Parliament in a long list of matters that concern the Sami as an indigenous people or developments within the Sami Homeland. Therefore, the recent court rulings violate those provisions. Through the violations of articles 25, 26 and 27, the State party also violates the right of the Sami indigenous people to enjoy their right of selfdetermination, as protected under article 1 of the Covenant. 3.3 Under the current composition, the Sami Parliament continues to defend the rights and interests of the Sami indigenous people, but often this is delayed or compromised because of the time and effort that is consumed in resolving internal disagreements that very often relate to the question of how the Parliament should relate to the State of Finland and its continuing interventions on Sami lands and the impact thereof on livelihoods. As a result, the Parliament was unable to stop the Government and Parliament of Finland from enacting a new act on the government forestry agency, 4 thus ignoring the concerns of the Sami people and denying their future participation. 3.4 A similar ongoing development relates to a new draft treaty between Finland and Norway concerning the common border along the River Teno. The Sami have largely been excluded from effective participation in the negotiations between the two Governments, despite the fact that, since time immemorial, this river has been used by the Sami for salmon fishing. This activity has always constituted the main source of livelihood for the local Sami population and is part of their way of life and culture. It determines their social organization, weekly and annual cycle of work, cross-border cooperation, handicrafts and arts, and folklore. The aim of the project is publicly presented as seeking to protect the sustainability of the salmon stock, while in fact it would constitute large-scale expropriation of the immemorial fishing rights of the Sami indigenous people. It would permanently exclude large parts of the Sami currently allowed to practice traditional forms of fishing, while at the same time disproportionally allowing holidaymakers to practice this activity. This is another practical example of the impact of the Court rulings of 30 September 2015, not only on the lives of the author and her fellow members of the elected Sami Parliament but also on the lives of all Sami in Finland. 3.5 The Supreme Administrative Court’s consultation with the Board of the Sami Parliament before issuing its rulings of 30 September 2015 was a mere formality. In September 2015, the Sami Parliament was confronted with almost 200 simultaneous appeals by persons who sought to be enrolled on the electoral list. The Court gave it only 4 4 The act entered into force on 15 April 2016. GE.19-04714