CCPR/C/117/D/2379/2014 Author’s comments on the State party’s observations 5.1 On 28 January 2015, the author submitted her comments on the State party’s observations. She asserts that the living conditions in Italy for asylum seekers and beneficiaries of subsidiary protection are similar, since there is no effective integration scheme in place. Asylum seekers and recipients of subsidiary protection thus often face the same severe difficulties in finding basic shelter, access to sanitary facilities and food. The author refers to a 2013 report by the Jesuit Refugee Service, which states that the real problem concerns those who are sent back to Italy and who were already granted some kind of protection. It is claimed that those returnees may have already stayed in at least one of the accommodation options available upon initial arrival but, if they left the centre voluntarily before the established time, they are no longer entitled to accommodation in the government reception centres for asylum seekers. 14 Most people occupying abandoned buildings in Rome fall in this last category. The findings show that the lack of places to stay is a big problem, especially for returnees who are, in most cases, holders of international or humanitarian protection.15 5.2 The author further disputes the interpretation of the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights referred to by the State party. In particular, in the Samsam case, the applicant and her children had not yet been returned to Italy at the time of the adoption of the Court’s decision, and the Court noted that the Dutch authorities would give prior notice to their Italian counterparts of the transfer of the applicant and her children, allowing the Italian authorities to prepare for their arrival.16 Accordingly, the decision that a return to Italy would not constitute a breach of article 3 of the European Convention had been based on the assumption that the Italian authorities would actually prepare a suitable solution for the arrival of the family. In contrast to the Samsam case, the author in the present case has already experienced being transferred from Finland to Italy. She had her residence permit renewed but she still, and especially after being reunited with her children in 2013, found the living conditions desperate. 5.3 The author considers that more relevant for the present case is the European Court judgment in the case of Tarakhel v. Switzerland, 17 in which the Court stated that the presumption that a State participating in the Dublin system would respect the fundamental rights guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights is not “irrebuttable”.18 The Court noted that, in the current situation in Italy, the possibility that a significant number of asylum seekers may be left without accommodation or accommodated in overcrowded facilities without any privacy, or even in insalubrious or violent conditions, could not be dismissed as unfounded. 19 It emphasized that children in particular had specific needs and extreme vulnerability, and that reception facilities for children must be adapted to their age, to ensure that those conditions do not create for them situation of stress 14 15 16 17 18 19 8 See Jesuit Refugee Service, Protection Interrupted: The Dublin Regulation’s Impact on Asylum Seekers’ Protection (Brussels, June 2013), p. 152. Ibid., p. 161. In addition, the author quotes another report indicating that persons with protection status have no access to the European Fund for Refugees (FER) accommodation either, because they are only for asylum seekers. Therefore, according to this report, it is extremely difficult for people who have been granted protection status who are returned to Italy to find accommodation; OSAR. Reception conditions in Italy-Report on the current situation of asylum seekers and beneficiaries of protection, in particular Dublin returnees, October 2013, p.5. Ibid., para. 77. Tarakhel v. Switzerland, European Court of Human Rights judgment of 4 November 2014, Application No. 29217/12. Ibid., para. 33. Ibid., para. 115.