PROTECTING MINORITY RIGHTS – A Practical Guide to Developing Comprehensive Anti-Discrimination Legislation economic and public life”, as well as, at article 2 (3), that “persons belonging to minorities have the right to participate effectively in decisions on the national and, where appropriate, regional level concerning the minority to which they belong or the regions in which they live, in a manner not incompatible with national legislation”. The Human Rights Committee has noted that the enjoyment of the rights guaranteed by article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights “may require positive legal measures of protection and measures to ensure the effective participation of members of minority communities in decisions which affect them”.1081 Various questions arise at the intersection of the rights to consultation and participation and the right to non-discrimination. Can, for instance, a community agree to racially segregated housing and what is the status of consultations that arrive at such a conclusion? Can a community ask the State not to intervene to protect women and girls from harmful practices, such as child marriage, on the basis of the community right to participation in decisions that affect it? As the Human Rights Committee has set out, positive measures taken to realize the rights of minorities provided by article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights “must respect the provisions of articles 2.1 and 26 of the Covenant both as regards the treatment between different minorities and the treatment between the persons belonging to them and the remaining part of the population”.1082 More broadly, the Committee has also noted “that none of the rights protected under article 27 of the Covenant may be legitimately exercised in a manner or to an extent inconsistent with the other provisions of the Covenant”.1083 Thus, any measures regarding consultation taken by the State – or measures taken pursuant to such consultation – cannot result in discrimination. It is both illegitimate to pose questions that are discriminatory while purporting to carry out “consultation with affected groups” and to agree to discriminatory actions or omissions grounded in the logic of – or with reference to – minority community participation. Similarly invalid are “yes-no” consultations, in which communities “participate” by choosing between several bad options. As noted above, discrimination can be both intentional and unintentional – discrimination is a matter of fact not of motive and, as such, consent obtained through consultation is not a justification for acts that are discriminatory. Equally, as discussed above, the Human Rights Committee has noted that the rights provided under article 27 “do not authorize any State, group or person to violate the right to the equal enjoyment by women of any Covenant rights, including the right to equal protection of the law”.1084 Based on the Committee’s logic in its general comment No. 23 (1994), the same standard is applicable to discrimination on any grounds. As this makes clear, the State cannot acquiesce to discrimination within a minority community on the basis of consultation or participation – to do so would be a failure of its obligation to ensure equal enjoyment of the right to non-discrimination. MINORITY RELOCATION AND DISCRIMINATION IN SERBIA In Serbia, property developers in Belgrade, working with the city authorities, sought the eviction of Roma living in slum housing in prime real estate areas in the city centre. Following civic and international mobilization to stop the evictions, the authorities in Belgrade agreed to a rehousing programme funded by the European Union and bilateral donors. The various programmes, however, placed the relocated Roma in concentrated housing on the outskirts of the city, frequently in tension with local majority communities or with other Roma communities into which the evicted Roma were moved. Consultation with the affected groups avoided offering integrated housing as an option; often it simply raised questions about the prioritization of persons to be moved, in some cases giving rise to internal community conflict. The specific context was one of very high levels of antipathy towards Roma; as the Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living and on the right to non-discrimination in this context noted: “the disproportionate number of evictions of Roma and 160 1081 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 23 (1994), para. 7. 1082 Ibid., para. 6.2. 1083 Ibid., para. 8. 1084 Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 28 (2000), para. 32.