CCPR/C/117/D/2387/2014 Annex I [Original: French] Individual opinion of Committee member Yadh Ben Achour 1. I concur with the Committee’s decision to reject, on the merits, communication No. 2387/2014, A.B. v. Canada. However, I would like to point out that the Committee has not taken into account a number of elements that, in my view, must be considered in order to reach the same conclusions on the merits. 2. In paragraph 8 (5) of the Views, the Committee states that it is not able to conclude that the information before it shows that the author’s rights under articles 6 (1) and 7 of the Covenant would be violated if he were removed to Somalia. Therefore, neither the right to life nor the right to protection against torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is at stake here. 3. In these circumstances, it is imperative to recall the duties of every foreigner, whether he or she is a temporary resident, a permanent resident, an asylum seeker or a refugee in a host country. These duties are recognized by international law, in particular the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 4. The author had refugee status in Canada. This status entails obligations established by articles 2 and 33 of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Article 2 provides that “Every refugee has duties to the country in which he finds himself, which require in particular that he conform to its laws and regulations as well as to measures taken for the maintenance of public order.” Article 33, which provides protection against the expulsion or refoulement of refugees, makes that prohibition subject to a sine qua non condition defined by article 2 (2): “The benefit of the present provision may not, however, be claimed by a refugee whom there are reasonable grounds for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country.” 5. These provisions, which are applicable to refugees, apply to all aliens. Article 13 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states that: “An alien lawfully in the territory of a State party to the present Covenant may be expelled therefrom only in pursuance of a decision reached in accordance with law and shall, except where compelling reasons of national security otherwise require, be allowed to submit the reasons against his expulsion.” While compelling reasons of national security may militate against allowing the victim of an expulsion to submit the reasons against his expulsion, these same compelling reasons may, a fortiori, constitute the cause of the expulsion itself. Let us recall that, in the present case, the deportation decision was taken by the Canadian authorities “in accordance with the law” and due process, which gave the author a chance to defend his case. 6. These obligations have been seriously violated by the author, whose antisocial actions have exhibited a significant degree of criminality. The actions in question are not merely offences but crimes. The author has therefore become, through his own doing, a threat to public order in Canada. The Government of Canada is therefore right to maintain that the author is a danger to the public. 7. Having discarded the possibility that the author would face risks relating to the right to life and freedom from torture, as stated in paragraph 2 of the present annex, it was necessary to strike a fair balance between the author’s duties and his rights, including the right to be protected against expulsion, and between the danger he poses to public order and the risks that he would face if returned to Somalia. In this regard, the question of proportionality must be considered. Yet from this point of view, the Committee has not taken sufficient account of this need for balance between the rights and duties of foreigners in host countries. Nor has it sufficiently considered the Canadian Government’s arguments that the danger posed by the author to the public greatly outweighs any risk that he would 14 GE.17-03930