CCPR/C/123/D/2807/2016 Annex I Joint opinion of Committee members Ilze Brands Kehris, Sarah Cleveland, Christof Heyns, Marcia V.J. Kran and Yuval Shany (concurring) 1. We agree with the majority of the Committee that France, the respondent State, did not adequately explain a security rationale that could justify the blanket ban on Muslim religious full-face coverage, especially in the light of the exceptions for other forms of fullface coverage made under Act No. 2010-1192. We also agree with the majority that the State party has not persuasively explained how the interest of “living together” could justify compelling, under threat of criminal sanction, individuals belonging to a religious minority to dress in a manner conducive to “normal” social interaction. 2. We are more receptive, however, to the implicit claim that the full veil is discriminatory (para. 7.15), as we consider the wearing of the full veil to be a traditional practice that has allowed men to subjugate women in the name of preserving their “modesty”,1 which results in women not being entitled to occupy public space on the same terms as men. We would therefore have no difficulty in regarding France as entitled – and, in fact, under an obligation, pursuant to articles 2 (1), 3 and 26 of the Covenant, as well as article 5 (a) of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women – to take all appropriate measures to address this pattern of conduct so as to ensure that it does not result in discrimination against women. 3. The question remains, however, whether the introduction of a blanket ban on the fullface veil in public, enforced through a criminal sanction imposed on the very women such a ban would purport to protect, is an appropriate measure in the circumstances of the present case – that is, whether it was a reasonable and proportional measure directed against the author and other Muslim women. On this matter, we are of the view that the State party has not demonstrated to the Committee that less intrusive measures than the blanket ban, such as education and awareness-raising against the negative implications of wearing the full-face veil, criminalizing all forms of pressure on women to wear such a veil and a limited ban enforced through appropriate non-criminal sanctions on wearing the full veil in specific social contexts, underscoring the State’s opposition to the practice (such as prohibiting the full-face veil for teachers in public schools or government employees addressing the public), would not have resulted in sufficient modification of the practice of wearing the full veil, while respecting the rights to privacy, autonomy and religious freedom of the women themselves, including those who choose to wear the veil. 4. Given the harsh consequences of the full ban on the ability of women who choose to wear the veil to move freely in public, we are not in a position to accept the Act as a reasonable and proportionate measure compatible with the Covenant. We believe that our position on the high threshold for justifying a ban on clothing chosen by women is generally consistent with the relevant parts of the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in S.A.S. v France, in which the Court rejected a justification of the ban on the grounds of, among others, anti-discrimination.2 1 2 A/HRC/29/40, para. 19, in which the Working Group on the issue of discrimination against women in law and in practice stated that conservative religious extremist movements imposed strict modesty codes in order to subjugate women and girls in the name of religion. European Court of Human Rights, S.A.S. v. France, application No. 43835/11, Judgment, 1 July 2014, paras. 118–120. 15