A/75/211 (a) Individuals are free to claim to be, or not to be, a member of a minority (the “subjective principle”); (b) Individuals must “belong” in order not to be denied the right, along with the other members of the group, to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practise their own religion or to use their own language. An individual may consider that he or she “belongs”, but it does not follow this is objectively accurate or that members of the ethnic, religious or linguistic community must accept such a claim from individuals who may or may not have any connection with the minority; (c) Unless there are matters of civil rights involving the person who claims to belong of a minority, such as contract matters, property issues, etc., it is not for the authorities to question the subjective principle concerning membership of an ethnic, religious or linguistic minority. The subjective claim of an individual to belong to a minority is not to be verifiable or contested; (d) In the case of objections from the minority group itself that an individual does not belong, it must be demonstrated there is a sufficient “connection” with other members of the community. Objections by the authorities, or indeed members of a majority, that a person does not belong to a national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minority cannot trump the free choice of individuals to belong whe n this association is acknowledged by other members of the minority or objectively demonstrable. It is not merely a subjective component, but one that is more objective in its demonstration. 41. Support for the view that there is an objective as well as a subjective dimension in cases where individuals may not belong to a minority appeared fairly often in State submissions to the Special Rapporteur and in examples of policies to protect the human rights of minorities. There have been suggestions that, in th e case of favourable State policies, individuals must objectively demonstrate they are members of minority communities in order to be able to benefit from special programmes targeting, for example, national minorities or indigenous peoples. Some submission s limit themselves to indicating that individuals should be free to belong or change their religion or system of beliefs as a simple matter of individual choice. 42. Fortunately, in addition to a fair level of agreement – if not unanimity – among State submissions on this specific dimension, there is a fair amount of international jurisprudence on this matter, 14 including from the Human Rights Committee. That guidance tends to confirm, consistently with most national practices, that there can be an objective dimension needed in cases where the subjective assertion of belonging to a minority is not confirmed by other members of the community. In Lovelace v. Canada (CCPR/C/13/D/24/1977), the Human Rights Committee faced a challenge of legislation that stripped indigenous women of their status as “Indians” after marriage to a non-indigenous man. The legislation, and the concurring view of the local indigenous council, was that Ms. Lovelace could not purchase a home on a reserve because the council prioritized housing for members of the Malecite indigenous minority. For the Human Rights Committee, however, even if some members of the Malecite indigenous minority believed it was necessary to deny Ms. Lovelace “Indian status” and the ensuing privileges, including the right to live in her community, there was no rejection of the objectively demonstrable fact that she still “belonged”, in the sense of being ethnically and culturally a Malecite and could not be “excluded” from that demonstrable factual connection through legislation. Similarly, the conclusions of the Human Rights Committee can be noted in Kitok v. Sweden (CCPR/C/33/D/197/1985), who claimed to __________________ 14 20-09835 See Council of Europe, Thematic Commentary No. 3: The language rights of persons belonging to national minorities under the Framework Convention, adopted on 24 May 2012, ACFC/44 DOC(2012)001 rev, para. 17: “Affiliation with a minority group is a matter of personal choice, which must, however, be based on some objective criteria relevant to the person ’s identity”. 11/20