life, the limit that has been imposed on that right is not contrary to article 17, paragraph 1, of the Covenant. That limit, the State party considers, is justified by higher considerations deriving from the respect due to the dignity of the human person. Hence it is rooted in a fundamental principle and thus constitutes neither an illegal nor an arbitrary encroachment upon individuals’ right to respect for their private and family lives. cannot be of any concern. It also says that any discussion of whether an activity involving the tossing of people of normal size, i.e. unaffected by a specific handicap, was undignified would take a very different form.5 It concludes that the difference in treatment is based on an objective difference in status between those suffering from dwarfism and those that are not and hence, given the underlying aim of upholding human dignity, is legitimate and, in any event, consistent with article 26 of the Covenant. 4.3 Regarding the alleged violation of article 2, paragraph 1, of the Covenant, the State party believes that the article is similar in content to article 14 of the European Convention; the European Commission found that that article, which the author cited in his application to the Commission, was not in fact applicable since the author did not elsewhere invoke any right which the Convention protected. The State party asserts that the same is true of the present communication, since the author again fails to show that his claimed right to be tossed professionally is recognized in the Covenant or could be derived from one of the rights the Covenant does cover. It adds that, if the author’s intention is to avail himself of such rights, it must be remembered that freedom of employment and freedom of trade and industry are not among the rights protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 4.5 Concerning the alleged violation of article 5, paragraph 2, of the Covenant, the State party declares that the author presents no arguments showing why banning dwarf tossing should be contrary to that provision. It is difficult to see, in the State party’s view, in what way the State authorities might have unduly restricted rights recognized under French law on the basis of the Covenant. The author may perhaps consider that the authorities have evinced an over-extended notion of human dignity which has prevented him from asserting his rights to employment and to pursue the occupation of his choosing, but the State party argues that an individual’s right to respect as a human being is not one of those covered by the Covenant even if some of the wording in the Covenant - such as the ban on inhuman and degrading treatment - is in fact inspired by that notion. For that reason it concludes that article 5, paragraph 2, is not applicable in the present case. It adds that, even supposing for the sake of argument that the article were held to apply, it would not have been infringed: the action taken by the authorities was not prompted by a desire to restrict freedom of employment, trade and industry unduly on the grounds of due respect for the individual; it is a classic instance in administrative police practice of reconciling the exercise of economic freedoms with the desire to uphold public order, one element of which is public morals. Such a construction is not excessive since on the one hand, as Government Commissioner6 Frydman said in his findings, public order has long incorporated notions of public morals and, on the other hand, it would be shocking were the basic principle of due respect for the individual 4.4 On the alleged violation of article 26 of the Covenant, the State party stresses that the Council of State regards the non-discrimination clause in that article as the counterpart to article 2, paragraph 1, and as with article 2, the scope of application of article 26 is limited to the rights protected by the Covenant.4 From that interpretation it follows, the State party argues, that as already stated in reference to the alleged violation of article 2, paragraph 1, a dwarf’s right to be tossed for a living derives from none of the rights protected by the Covenant and the question of non-discrimination therefore does not arise. If for the sake of argument, the State party goes on, the nondiscrimination language in article 26 were to be held valid for all rights enshrined both in the Covenant and in the domestic legal order, the question would arise of whether the contested ban is discriminatory. Selfevidently, the State party argues, it is not. By definition it applies only to individuals suffering from dwarfism since they are the only ones who might be involved in the banned activity; the indignity of the activity stems very specifically from those individuals’ particular physical characteristics. The State party says it cannot be upbraided for treating dwarves differently from those who are not since they are two separate categories of individuals and for one of them “tossing”, for obvious physical reasons, 5 Findings of Government Commissioner Patrick Frydman, RTDH 1996, p. 664. 6 The Government Commissioner is not a representative of the administration. He is a member of the Council of State whose presence is required when the Council sits as a judicial body and whose role is to offer a completely independent opinion “on the factual circumstances and the applicable rules of law, and his view of the solutions which, his conscience tells him, the dispute under consideration calls for”. This definition, given in one of its judgements by the Council of State itself (CE Sect. 10 July 1957, Gervaise, Leb. P.467), has been incorporated into article L7 of the Code of Administrative Justice. 4 Council of State, Vve Doukoure, Opinion handed down on 15 April 1996, No. 176399. 112