A/HRC/27/55 47. Examples of common violations include (a) raising prices excessively so that poor people can no longer afford even basic services; (b) reducing social benefits on which poor people rely; (c) allowing infrastructure to deteriorate due to a failure to ensure operation and maintenance; and (d) implementing austerity measures that create long-term retrogression not limited to the period of crisis or which disproportionately impact marginalized or vulnerable groups. 48. A particular concern relates to private sector participation and withdrawal of State regulation, oversight and provision in times of austerity. The Portuguese auditing institution found that private-public partnerships – by not sharing risks and benefits equally – benefit largely the private sector, that they are detrimental to the people and that services are often of lower quality while higher prices are charged. 51 The Special Rapporteur has raised related concerns in a series of communications.52 5. Failure to ensure minimum essential levels of access to water and sanitation 49. The obligation to ensure minimum essential levels of water and sanitation is considered an immediate obligation. 53 However, huge numbers of people lack access to even basic services, and more than one billion people practise open defecation. Where a State has the capacity and resources to ensure minimum essential levels of rights, this obligation must be met immediately. In many instances, it can be achieved with a redistribution of resources and comprehensive strategies and plans aimed at achieving universal access. However, the human rights framework does not demand the impossible. There are situations where States lack the capacity to ensure access to basic services for all immediately. In such circumstances, human rights law requires that addressing such massive deprivations related to the minimum essential levels of the rights to water and sanitation be accorded the highest priority. A State “must demonstrate that every effort has been made to use all resources that are at its disposition in an effort to satisfy, as a matter of priority, those minimum obligations”. 54 Hence, where minimum essential levels are not ensured, the State is, prima facie, violating human rights, and it bears the burden of proof to demonstrate that it lacks the capacity to do so.55 50. Courts have held in a number of circumstances that minimum essential levels of water and sanitation must be ensured immediately. In circumstances where capacity existed, the Constitutional Court of Colombia held that the authorities had to connect housing to water and sewerage and to ensure a sufficient daily amount of water. 56 The Supreme Court of India dealt with lack of basic sanitation in more desperate circumstances, in a case where informal settlements collectively complained that the cesspits used for sanitation were overflowing and causing serious health concerns. The Court ordered the 51 52 53 54 55 56 14 See www.tcontas.pt/pt/actos/rel_auditoria/2014/2s/audit-dgtc-rel003-2014-2s.pdf. Communication GBR 3/2013 at https://spdb.ohchr.org/hrdb/24th/public__AL_UK_29.08.13_(3.2013).pdf ; Reply 28/10/2013, available from <https://spdb.ohchr.org/hrdb/24th/UK_28.10.13_(3.2013).pdf>; Communication PRT 2/2013 at <https://spdb.ohchr.org/hrdb/24th/public_-_AL_Portugal_21.06.13_(2.2013).pdf> ; Reply 26/09/2013at https://spdb.ohchr.org/hrdb/24th/Portugal_26.09.13_(2.2013).pdf. E/C.12/2002/11, para. 37(a). Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 3, para. 10. Inga Winkler, The Human Right to Water – Significance, Legal Status and Implications for Water Allocation (Hart, Oxford, 2012), p. 122. Corte Constitucional, Ninth Chamber of Revision, Hernán Galeano Díaz c/ Empresas Públicas de Medellín ESP y Marco Gómez Otero y Otros c/ Hidropacífico SA ESP y Otros, 5 August 2010.