You can write an application to the Human Rights Committee if you believe that your human rights have been violated by French (or any other State which has signed and ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and its Optional Protocol) state officials or institutions.
However, there are some conditions which you have to take into account before you can submit a complaint:
The Committee cannot investigate complaints which do not relate to the human rights protected in the Covenant.
example The Human Rights Committee cannot investigate an application about your property rights or state tax policies.
The Committee cannot examine the decisions or actions of private companies, international organizations or private individuals who do not represent French state institutions.
You cannot complain about a violation of another person’s human rights, unless you have written consent from that person or a right to represent them. For example, you can complain about a violation of another person’s human rights if you have a power of attorney granted to you allowing you to do that or if you have a legal right to represent that person (such as parent of a minor or a legal guardian).
exception You can also complain about a violation committed against someone else, without their written consent, but in that case you will have to prove that it was impossible for you to obtain such consent (for example, the person has died or disappeared).
The Committee cannot investigate a potential violation of your rights if you have not first tried to resolve the problem using all the usual complaint mechanisms that are available under national law. This is known as the exhaustion of domestic remedies.
The French judicial system is organized into two distinct orders: the judicial order, competent for civil and criminal matters, and the administrative order, competent for administrative and public matters. Each of these orders are then divided into 3 categories with the latest, cassation, ruling on the applicable law but not on the facts of the proceedings. To submit a complaint to the Human Rights Committee, you must have applied and received an answer from a court of cassation.
Learn more about the French legal system.
example If you believe that the judge in your case has not given you an opportunity to express your arguments, you must complain about it in your appeal to an appeal court: Cour d’Appel for the judicial order and Cour Administrative d’Appel for the administrative order. If the appeal court does not examine your complaint or remedy that violation, you must appeal to the court of cassation of the appropriate order (Cour de cassation for the judicial order and the Conseil d’État for the administrative order). Only after you receive an answer from a cassation court can you complain to the Human Rights Committee.
An application with all the additional documents should be sent to the Committee as soon as possible. There is no set deadline for sending the application, however, if it is submitted 5 years after the last national decision, the Committee may refuse to examine it.
The Human Rights Committee will refuse to accept your application if you have already complained about that situation to another international body, such as another United Nations Committee or an international court such as the European Court of Human Rights.
example If your complaint about this situation has already been examined by the European Court of Human Rights, your complaint regarding the particular violation will not be accepted.