CCPR/C/127/D/2438/2014
the State party not to evict the authors from their homes while the communication was
under consideration by the Committee.
1.3
On 10 September 2014, the Committee, again acting through its Special Rapporteur
on new communications and interim measures, decided to withdraw its request for interim
measures on the basis of information indicating that an agreement had been reached
between the authors and the local authorities.
The facts as submitted by the authors
2.1
The authors are members of an extended family group. They are unemployed and
live in a house that was built in 1993 without planning permission. In addition to the three
authors, 16 others live in the house in question, including minor children.
2.2
The authors’ house is on a property located opposite the stadium Rushd Bizhuta, in
the city of Elbasan. A.K. and V.K. are its informal owners. The family has been living in
the house for 20 years, during which time the authorities have de facto tolerated the authors’
residence in the house, which is connected to the electricity grid and the water mains.
2.3
The authors submit that a significant number of houses are built without official
building permissions and that the Albanian authorities have taken a series of measures to
formalize these buildings. In 2006, A.K. and V.K. filed a request to have their dwelling
legalized; that request was pending as of 3 July 2014.
2.4
On 27 May 2014, by a decision of the national commission for the territory, it was
decided to renovate the Rushd Bizhuta stadium and to landscape the square in front of it.
The authors submit that it was not clear to them to what extent their property would be
affected by the renovation, as their house was located “on the other side of the road that
surrounds the stadium” and not within the stadium’s “immediate surrounding area”.
2.5
On 30 June 2014, the Municipal Urban Construction Inspectorate of Elbasan
adopted two documents entitled “Notification for vacating the property”, with reference
numbers 901 and 902. The two documents, which were served on A.K. and V.K. on 1 July
2014, contained an order for the recipients to vacate their home within five days. Should
they fail to do so, the Municipal Inspectorate would proceed to demolish the house without
ensuring for the residents any form of temporary shelter or alternative adequate
accommodation. According to the documents, the demolition of the house was necessary on
grounds of public interest. The authorities neither consulted the authors nor provided them
with any form of assistance, compensation or alternative accommodation.
2.6
Also on 1 July 2014, V.K. and O.K. raised concerns with the Ministry of Social
Welfare and Youth, which responded immediately and addressed, on the same day, a letter
to the Municipal Urban Construction Inspectorate of Elbasan. The letter was also copied to
the Mayor of Elbasan, the Deputy Minister of Urban Development and Tourism and the
National Urban Construction Inspectorate. In its letter, the Ministry of Social Welfare and
Youth drew the authorities’ attention to the need to provide social assistance to the authors’
families as they were under threat of eviction. The letter was not binding on the authorities.
According to the authors, there was no remedy available to them to challenge the two
eviction notices as the domestic legal framework on the right to housing was ineffective, if
not inexistent.
2.7
The authors refer to the concluding observations of the Committee on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights on the combined second and third periodic reports of Albania, in
which that Committee expressed concern about incidents of forced evictions of Roma and
Egyptians from illegal settlements without provision of alternative housing, compensation,
protection, education or health services (E/C.12/ALB/CO/2-3, para. 29). The authors also
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