21
- or, completing a feasibility study.
The deadline for granting subsidies, whether unilaterally or subject to an
agreement, concerning municipalities or joint local authority bodies meeting the
aforementioned requirements, shall be extended by two years.”
THE LAW
FIRST PART: PRELIMINARY ISSUES
i.
Individual aspects of the complaint
52.
ATD Fourth World illustrates its complaint with individual accounts of
persons or families in great distress, in particular families from Herblay (Val
d’Oise) and Kaltenhouse (Bas-Rhin), coupled with eyewitness accounts from
Lille, Reims, Saint-Ouen l’Aumône, Pézenas and Strasbourg. Some of these
individuals and families have been homeless for decades and have
experienced considerable difficulty securing recognition of their fundamental
rights, particularly those embodied in the revised Charter. In this context, the
Committee was particularly attentive to the evidence given by Mrs Cécile
Reinhardt at the public hearing.
53.
The Committee attaches great importance to this information, which
highlights the difficulties faced by all those concerned, as well as the value of
the activities undertaken by ATD Fourth World. It hopes that rapid solutions
will be found that are fully consistent with the dignity of each individual
concerned. However, it must stress that the complaints procedure is, by its
very nature, a collective one that entails examination of general situations.
The Committee therefore has no authority to entertain individual situations nor
to make any assessment or impose measures on the Government.
ii.
The state of domestic law at the time of adoption of the
Committee’s decision
54. As to the new law on the enforceable right to housing adopted in France
in 2007 (“DALO Act”), the Committee recalls that within the scope of the
collective complaints procedure it bases its assessment of conformity with the
Charter on the domestic law and practice applicable on the date of the
decision on the merits of the complaint (European Council of Police Trade
Unions v. Portugal, Complaint No. 11/2001, decision on the merits of 21 May
2001).
55. In the present case, given that the measures foreseen in the new Act will
enter into force on 1 December 2008 (for certain categories of persons) and
on 1 January 2012 (for other categories of persons), the Committee will only
take into account the currently applicable regulations on housing and refrain
from assessing the measures contained in the new Act.
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