A/HRC/43/43 Guideline No. 16. Ensure access to justice for all aspects of the right to housing 80. The provision of legal remedies for the violation of the right to housing is a core component of States’ obligation to ensure the realization of this right. 92 As stated by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, many component elements of the right to adequate housing are closely bound up with the provision of domestic legal remedies to ensure the effective enjoyment of the right. 93 Yet courts and tribunals are often experienced by those who are living in informal settlements or homelessness as places where evictions are ordered or criminalizing sanctions imposed, rather than as venues where the right to housing can be claimed. 94 81. As noted by the Special Rapporteur in her report on access to justice, violations of the right to housing are as much failures in the administration of justice to ensure meaningful accountability and access to effective remedies as they are failures of housing programmes.95 82. States have an immediate obligation to ensure access to justice for those whose right to housing has been violated, including through failures to adopt reasonable measures for its progressive realization.96 In discharging their obligation, States should follow the 10 key principles identified by the Special Rapporteur.97 83. Implementation measures: (a) Access to justice for the right to housing should be ensured by all appropriate means, through courts, administrative tribunals, human rights institutions and informal or customary community-based justice systems. Hearings and other procedures should be timely, accessible, procedurally fair, enable full participation of affected individuals and groups and ensure effective remedies within a reasonable time frame. Where effective remedies rely on administrative or quasi-judicial procedures, recourse to courts should also be available;98 (b) Access to justice should be ensured for all components and dimensions of the right to housing that are guaranteed under international human rights law, covering not just the right to a physical shelter, but to a home in which to live in security, peace and dignity; not just protection from eviction or other State action, but also from State neglect and inaction and failure to take reasonable measures to progressively realize the right to housing. States should revoke legal provisions suggesting that the right to adequate housing is not justiciable under domestic law and should desist from making this argument before courts. Where the right to housing is not enshrined in national or constitutional law, access to effective judicial remedies can and should be ensured by recognizing the interdependence and indivisibility of the right to housing with other rights, such as the rights to life, health and non-discrimination; (c) Individuals and organizations representing them should have access to legal aid or other necessary assistance to enable them to participate in legal processes. Institutions, equality promotion bodies and civil society organizations should have legal standing to pursue claims to the right to housing on behalf of individuals and groups. Remedies should address both individual and systemic violations of the right to housing; (d) States should ensure access to justice for violations of the right to housing by transnational corporations, including by establishing parent company or group liability 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comments No. 3, para. 5, and No. 4, para. 17. I.D.G. v. Spain, para. 11.1. Ibid., para. 4. A/HRC/40/61, para. 2. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comments No. 3 and No. 9 (1998) on the domestic application of the Covenant. See also I.D.G. v. Spain, para. 11.3. A/HRC/40/61. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, general comment No. 9. 21