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Access to justice and the right to food: the way forward 2015, para. 25
- Paragraph text
- While on the whole European countries have been more reluctant to accept the justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights, there have been some significant cases. For example, in the 2012 German Federal Constitutional Court judgment 1 BvL 10/10, the court ruled on whether cash benefits for asylum seekers provided by the Asylum Seekers Benefit Act were compatible with its Constitution. The court relied on earlier decisions to reiterate that the State is under an obligation to ensure a "dignified minimum existence", defined as a "comprehensive fundamental rights guarantee" which includes access to food, clothing, household items, housing, heating, hygiene health and social assistance to persons in need. The benefits awarded to the asylum seekers under the law in question were deemed insufficient to guarantee a dignified minimum existence. The court also reaffirmed that benefits must be calculated on the basis of "real and actual needs" and thus be measured realistically. The court noted that the benefits prescribed under the Asylum Seekers Benefit Act had not increased since 1993, even though the cost of living in Germany had risen by 30 per cent in that period. As a result, a number of provisions of the act were declared unconstitutional. The court ordered the enactment of new legislation that would ensure a dignified minimum standard of living and introduced a transitional scheme that would provide higher cash benefits in the interim.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Equality & Inclusion
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Health
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2015
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
Access to land and the right to food 2010, para. 14
- Paragraph text
- Access to land and security of tenure are also essential for the ability of smallholders to achieve a decent standard of living. As noted above, the right to food imposes on States an obligation not to deprive individuals of access to the productive resources on which they depend. Where a community has settled on a piece of land and depends on that land for its livelihood, the obligation to respect the right to food thus requires that eviction of the community from that land be prohibited unless certain conditions are fulfilled. No eviction should take place that does not meet the criteria set out by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in its general comment No. 7, on the right to adequate housing: forced evictions, and in the Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-Based Evictions and Displacement. Those guidelines provide a practical tool to assist States and agencies in developing policies, legislation, procedures and preventive measures to ensure that forced evictions do not take place or, should prevention fail, to provide effective remedies to those whose human rights have been violated.
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on the right to food
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Topic(s)
- Food & Nutrition
- Governance & Rule of Law
- Movement
- Social & Cultural Rights
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2010
- Date added
- Aug 19, 2019
Paragraph
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