violation of articles 26 and 2 of the Covenant (11.6) and that the State party is under an obligation to provide the author with an opportunity to file a new claim for restitution on the basis of the relevant documents (12.2). undertaken to ensure to all individuals within its territory or subject to its jurisdiction the rights recognized in the Covenant and to provide an effective and enforceable remedy in case a violation has been established. Furthermore, the Committee urges the State party to put in place procedures to deal with Views under the Optional Protocol. Thirdly, I must point out that, on 11 May 2001, the author’s counsel was not only informed by the Czech Ministry of Agriculture of the existence of the relevant documents but also was allowed to inspect them (7.1). From this date onward, in my opinion, it seems impossible to maintain that the State party continued to violate the author’s rights under articles 26 and 2 by excluding her from access to the documents in question. 12.4 In this connection the Committee wishes to receive from the State party, within 90 days following the transmittal of these Views to the State party, information about the measures taken to give effect to the Views. The State party is also requested to publish the Committee’s Views. Individual opinion (Partly concurring) by Committee member Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati APPENDIX I agree with the Committee’s conclusion that the facts before it reveal a violation of articles 26 and 2 of the Covenant. However, I am persuaded that there is also a violation of article 14, paragraph 1, of the Covenant, which stipulates that all persons shall be equal before the courts and tribunals and be entitled to a fair and public hearing of their rights and obligations in a suit at law. As a prerequisite to have a fair and meaningful hearing of a claim, a person should be afforded full and equal access to public sources of information, including land registries and archives, so as to obtain the elements necessary to establish a claim. The author has demonstrated that she was denied such equal access, and the State party has failed to explain or refute the author’s allegations. Moreover, the protracted legal proceedings in this case, now lasting over 10 years, have not yet been completed. In the context of this particular case and in the light of previous Czech restitution cases already adjudicated by the Committee, the apparent reluctance of the Czech authorities and of the Czech courts to process restitution claims fairly and expeditiously also entails a violation of the spirit, if not the letter of article 14. It should also be remembered that, subsequent to the entry into force of the Optional Protocol for the Czech Republic, the State party has continued to apply Law No. 143/1947 (the “law Schwarzenberg”) which targeted exclusively the property of the author’s family. Such ad hominem legislation is incompatible with the Covenant, as a general denial of the right to equality. In the light of the above, I believe that the appropriate remedy should have been restitution and not just the opportunity of resubmitting a claim to the Czech courts. Individual opinion (partly concurring) by Committee member Mr. Nisuke Ando As for my own view on the restitution laws enacted after 1991, reference is made to my individual opinion appended to the Committee’s Views in Communication No. 774/1997, Brok v. The Czech Republic. As for the Committee’s Views in the instant case, I must first point out that the Views contradicts the Committee’s own admissibility decision. In its admissibility decision of 9 July 1999, the Committee clearly held that the author’s claim concerning Law No. 143/1947 were outside the Committee’s competence ratione temporis and thus inadmissible under article 1 of the Optional Protocol (6.2). And yet, in its examination of the merits, the Committee goes into the details of the author’s claims and states that on 30 January 1948 the confiscation of the properties in question under Benes’ Decrees Nos. 12 and 108/1945 were revoked in order to give way for the application of Law 143/1947 (11.5), that on 29 November 2001 the Regional Court of Ceske Budejovice recognized the confiscation as effected pursuant to Benes’ Decree No. 12/1945 (11.5), that the author was denied access to the relevant documents which were crucial for the correct decision of her case (11.4), and that only those documents could prove that the confiscation occurred on the basis of the Benes’ Decrees of 1945 and not of Law No. 143/1947 (11.3). Secondly, I must point out that, in these statements as well as in its conclusion that the State party violated the author’s right to the equal protection of the law under articles 26 and 2 by denying the author’s access to the relevant documents (11.6), the Committee has deviated from its established jurisprudence that it should not act as the court of fourth instance to any domestic court. True, the Committee indicates that the interpretation and application of domestic law is essentially a matter for the courts and the authorities of the State party concerned (11.4 and 11.6). However, while the Czech courts have decided that the properties in question were transferred to the State before 25 February 1948 and thus do not fall within the restitution of the property caused by the Communist regime (8.4), the Committee concludes that the author was denied access to the relevant documents in In 1999 the Committee had declared this communication admissible, insofar as it might raise issues under articles 26 and 2 of the Covenant. I do not think that this necessarily precluded the Committee from making a finding of a violation of article 14, since the State party was aware of all elements of the communication and could have addressed the article 14 issues raised by the author. Of course, the Committee could have revised its admissibility decision so as to include the claims under article 14 of the Covenant, and requested relevant observations from the State party. This, however, would have further delayed disposition of a case which has been before the Courts of the State party since 1992 and before the Committee since 1997. 59