UN Urges Albania to Halt Roma Eviction

The UN committee called on the government to suspend the eviction of the families until a complaint filed by their lawyers on the merits of the decision to demolish the houses and subsequent compensation claims are heard.

In a letter to the lawyers representing the families on July 4, the committee said the government had been informed of "interim measure of protection" applied to the applicants.  

Theo Alexandridis, a rights lawyer from the ResPublica center in Tirana, which is representing the Roma families, told BIRN that the interim measure from the UN body was an extraordinary measure and highlighted Albania’s lack of a legal framework concerning housing rights.  

“Usually, interim requests or measures are granted when the threat to the applicant might be irreparable, for example where an asylum seeker is about to be sent back to country where it's most certain that he will killed,” Alexandridis explained.

Alexandridis said different international bodies have criticized Albania for not having a legal framework to protect the right to housing, among them the UN, which has particularly expressed concern over the housing situation of Roma, who are "disproportionally affected by this lack of procedure in the domestic framework", he said.

“The problem in the Albanian context is that the person under eviction is not afforded any procedural protection whatsoever,” he added. 

“Under international standards they should have access to a judicial procedure where they would be able to challenge the eviction or the modalities of the eviction,” Alexandridis continued.

The UN Human Rights Committee is a body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political...

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