The author of the communication is F.R.B., a national of Algeria aged 17 at the time of submission of the communication. He claims that the State party has violated his rights under articles 2 and 3, read in conjunction with articles 8, 12, 16, 27 and 29 of the Convention. The Optional Protocol entered into force for the State party on 14 April 2014.
On 18 February 2021, the author was intercepted by the State party’s border police on board a boat off the coast of Almería. He had no documents. On 19 February 2021, an expulsion order was issued in respect of the author, and the investigating judge in Almería ordered him to be placed in a migrant holding centre in Algeciras. Upon entering the centre, the author claimed to be a minor. He was taken to a hospital to have his left wrist X-rayed, which showed that he was over 18 years of age. Based on this result, on 24 February 2021, the Public Prosecution Service issued a decree stating that the author was an adult. Subsequently, the author obtained a copy of his birth certificate, which confirmed his date of birth to be 15 October 2004. He then submitted the copy to the prosecutor’s office and asked to be recognized as a minor. However, the prosecutor’s office did not take this document into consideration or seek to verify its authenticity with the Algerian consular authorities.
Pursuant to article 6 of the Optional Protocol, on 13 April 2021, the working group on communications, acting on behalf of the Committee, requested the State party to adopt interim measures, namely, to stay the enforcement of the author’s deportation order pending the Committee’s consideration of his case and to transfer him to a child protection centre.
On 19 April 2021, the State party submitted observations on the interim measures, in which it informed the Committee that the author had been released on 25 March 2021 and that his whereabouts were unknown. It also requested additional information on the author’s whereabouts and a document signed by the author stating that he was willing to continue with the communication, in accordance with previous decisions of the Committee.3 On 19 May 2021, the author’s counsel submitted comments on the State party’s observations and request, in which she confirmed that the author was in France and was still in contact with her. She requested that the interim measures be maintained in case the author returned to the State party and that the examination of the communication continue, since the alleged violations, including the 35 days of detention, had not been remedied.
- K.L. v. Spain (CRC/C/85/D/29/2017), para. 7; N.A.B. v. Spain (CRC/C/87/D/66/2018); N.M.C. v. Spain (CRC/C/87/D/67/2018); and K.A. v. Spain (CRC/C/87/D/68/2018). ↩
On 18 November 2021, the State party requested that the consideration of the communication be discontinued on the grounds that the comments submitted by the author’s counsel did not include the author’s written consent. Despite several reminders from the Committee’s secretariat, the author did not submit comments on the State party’s request for discontinuance.
At a meeting on 20 September 2023, the Committee noted that the author’s counsel had not submitted comments on the State party’s request for the consideration of the communication to be discontinued. The Committee considered that the author had lost interest in communication No. 142/2021 and therefore decided to discontinue its consideration thereof, in accordance with rule 26 of its rules of procedure under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure.