Ignatane v. Latvia (communication No. 884/1999) concerned a Latvian citizen of Russian ethnic origin who was standing as a candidate in the local elections and was struck off her party’s list by a decision of the Riga Election Commission on the grounds that she did not have the required proficiency of the official language. The author argued that this decision violated articles 2 and 25 of ICCPR. She had been previously awarded a language-aptitude certificate stating that she had the highest level of proficiency in Latvian. In reaching its views, the CCPR Committee took into account the existence of the previous language certificate, which had been issued by a board of Latvian language specialists, and the fact that the Elections Commission had decided to strike Ms. Ignatane off the list on the decision of a single inspector. It stressed that: “The annulment of the author’s candidacy pursuant to a review that was not based on objective criteria and which the State party has not demonstrated to be procedurally correct is not compatible with the State party’s obligations under article 25 of the Covenant.” It also found that the author suffered “a specific injury in being prevented from standing for the local elections in the city of Riga in 1997, because of having been struck off the list of candidates on the basis of insufficient proficiency in the official language”. It thus concluded that Ms. Ignatane was a victim of a violation of article 25 in conjunction with article 2 of the Covenant. Nevertheless, the CCPR Committee did not pronounce on whether the preconditions of the electoral law itself were discriminatory. It rather looked at the particular circumstances of the case and the way that the law was implemented. villages while the resolutions were in force because she was scared that as a person of Roma ethnicity she would be threatened with violence. The resolutions were revoked in April 1999. The author argued that by maintaining the resolutions in force, the State party violated articles 2, paragraphs (a) and (c); 3; 4, paragraph (c); 5, paragraphs (d) and (i); and 6 of CERD. The Committee held that Ms. Koptova belonged to a group of the population directly targeted by the resolutions in questions and rejected the State party’s argument that the author could not be considered a “victim” within the meaning of article 14, paragraph 1, of CERD. On the merits of the communication, the Committee held that while the wording of the resolutions referred explicitly to Roma previously domiciled in the concerned municipalities, the context of their adoption indicated that other Roma would have been equally prohibited from settling there, and thus found a violation of article 5, paragraphs (d) and (i) of CERD (right to freedom of movement and residence). Furthermore, while the Committee noted that the contested resolutions were rescinded in April 1999, it recommended that Slovakia should take the necessary measures to ensure that practices restricting the freedom of movement and residence of Roma under its jurisdiction were fully and promptly eliminated. Koptova v. Slovakia (communication No. 13/1998) concerned two resolutions issued by the Municipal Council of Rokytovce and the Municipality of Nagov in June and July 1997, which forbade Roma citizens who used to live there from entering the villages or settling there. The author of the communication was also a Roma and the director of the Legal Defense Bureau for Ethnic Minorities of the Good Romany Fairy Kesaj Foundation in Kosice. She challenged one of the resolutions before the Constitutional Court. The author did not enter the Ms. L.R. et al. v. Slovakia (communication No. 31/2003) concerned a complaint of housing discrimination against Roma in the municipality of Dobsina. In 2002, following a petition by the Dobsina Chairman of the Real Slovak Party, the municipal council cancelled an earlier decision to construct low-cost housing for the Roma inhabitants of the town. The District Prosecutor and the Slovak Constitutional Court refused to examine the application of the Roma inhabitants requesting an investigation of the council’s actions. The In recent years, the CERD Committee has examined communications concerning claims of racial discrimination against persons of Roma ethnicity in areas such as housing, freedom of movement and residence, and access to public places. ANNEXES 187