CCPR/C/116/D/2402/2014 Annex III Individual opinion of Committee member Anja Seibert-Fohr (concurring) 1. I concur with the Committee’s Views. I write separately in the hope of shedding further light on the Committee’s reasoning, which is summarized in paragraph 6.6 and led to the conclusion that the communication is inadmissible under article 2 of the Optional Protocol. 2. According to the Committee’s standing jurisprudence, States parties are under an obligation “not to extradite, deport, expel or otherwise remove a person from their territory, where there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk of irreparable harm, such as that contemplated by articles 6 and 7 of the Covenant”.a The existence of a risk under article 7 must be determined on a case-by-case basis. It is for the authors of a communication to adduce evidence capable of proving that there are substantial grounds for believing that, if the measure complained of were to be implemented, they would be exposed to a real risk of being subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In order to substantiate the universally applicable threshold of article 7, it is insufficient if an author submits that he or she will not receive financial or other assistance from the authorities of the receiving State. The non-availability of social assistance as such does not amount to treatment in violation of article 7. 3. In the present case, the authors had been granted temporary residence permits by Italy, which allowed them to work and benefit from the general schemes for social assistance, health care, social housing and education. They submit that, having been granted subsidiary protection and having benefited from the reception system before, they would now return to Italy without the right to access reception centres. However, the authors’ previous experience in Italy does not support this submission. When the second author returned from Norway to Italy in January 2012, she was not denied access but housed again in a reception centre in Turin where she had been before in 2008/09. There are no reasons to assume that this would not be the case if she is deported to Italy again. Neither is there any indication that the authors would not be able to renew their residence permits when they return. 4. In order to substantiate the claim that Denmark would violate their right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, it also does not suffice to submit, as the authors do, that they did not (and will not) receive financial or any other assistance from the Italian authorities in finding alternative living arrangements and work.b The same applies to their claim that there is no effective integration scheme in Italy. The living conditions claimed by the authors do not rise to a level that would render their deportation cruel, inhuman or degrading. The facts in this case, in which both authors are entitled to and capable of work, are substantially different from the facts in Jasin et al. v. Denmark, where the Committee found a violation of article 7, because as a single mother of three small children, whose residence permit had expired while in Italy and who was suffering from health problems, the author would have been left upon deportation in a situation threatening her and her children’s existence.c In contrast, in the present case, the legal status of the authors permits them to work and their situation as a family with two healthy adults fit for work does not warrant the same conclusion. a b c 14 See the Committee’s general comment No. 31, para. 12. See the author’s submission in para. 6.6. Communication No. 2360/2014, Jasin et al. v. Denmark, Views adopted on 22 July 2015. GE.16-10167