Developing a self-assessment guardianship tool for unaccompanied children

Date of article: 20/03/2019

Daily News of: 20/03/2019

Country:  EUROPE

Author: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Article language: en

The EU-funded ProGuard project held a conference in Brussels on 14 and 15 March

It gathered representatives of guardianship and child protection authorities, civil society, EU agencies, Council of Europe and the European Commission.

The agency presented the principles on guardianship developed in the Handbook for guardianship for children deprived of parental care. Those principles are being used as a basis for the establishment of a self-assessment tool for national authorities to assess and improve their guardianship systems.

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Funding Roma inclusion and empowerment in Czechia

Date of article: 20/03/2019

Daily News of: 20/03/2019

Country:  EUROPE

Author: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Article language: en

During the EEA/ Norway Grants 2014-2021 launch conference of its Human Rights, Roma Inclusion, and Domestic and Gender-based Violence Programme, the agency presented information about the Roma in Czechia through the lens of statistical data from its EU minorities and discrimination survey

FRA also positioned Roma inclusion in Czechia vis-à-vis other countries with Roma populations.

FRA, as International Partner Organization, will provide assistance in implementing the programme in the area of Roma inclusion and empowerment. This will include drafting the call for proposals, participation in the selection of supported activities as well as monitoring of their implementation throughout 2024, until when the activities under current programming period could be implemented.

The conference took place from 13 to 14 March.

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EASO train the trainers workshop on migrant detention

Date of article: 20/03/2019

Daily News of: 20/03/2019

Country:  EUROPE

Author: European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Article language: en

The European Asylum Support Office (EASO) organised a Professional Development Workshop for members of national courts and tribunals on the detention of applicants for international protection

The agency fed into the workshop with fundamental rights expertise. The workshop was held from 6 to 7 March in Malta at EASO.

The meeting brought together more than 20 judges from different EU Member States. It was part of EASO’s train-the-trainers system designed to ensure that judicial trainers with requisite expertise are available across all EU Member States, who will then in turn be able to deliver training on the above topic in their own jurisdiction.

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Age discrimination at work

Date of article: 19/03/2019

Daily News of: 20/03/2019

Country:  Czechia

Author: Czech Public Defender of Rights

Article language: en

19. 03. 2019

The Defender inquired into a complaint where the complainant alleged that his employer was discriminating against employees because of their age. Allegedly, employees over 65 years of age were being offered less favourable contracts as concerned their term, number of working hours and sources of funding. The complainant filed a complaint against unequal treatment at the District Labour Inspectorate. Shortly after the employer learnt about this fact, it informed the complainant that his contract would not be extended. The Inspectorate carried out an inspection and found a violation of the prohibition of discrimination, but did not initiate administrative proceedings. After one year had passed, the employer’s liability for an administrative offence expired. 

Defender´s inquiry into the case confirmed that the employer had committed discrimination on grounds of age. The employer applied rules according to which employees over 65 years of age were mainly offered fixed-term contracts and their salaries were paid from an institutional (i.e. certainly available) budget only up to 50% of their working hours; the remuneration for the remaining working hours depended on limited grant money. These rules meant that the numbers of hours worked by employees over 65 were often reduced.

Younger employees were offered indefinite-term full-time contracts and their salaries were largely paid from the institutional budget. This conduct was not justified by objective reasons based on the nature of their work (they were research workers).

As concerns the Inspectorate’s activities, Ombudwoman concluded that it had made an error as it had disclosed the identity of the complainant to the employer, which potentially infringed on the complainant’s legitimate interests beyond the scope necessary to conduct an inspection; it had also failed to deal with the complainant’s complaint without delay, and despite having identified a justified suspicion that an offence had been committed, it had failed to initiate administrative proceedings.

Ombudswoman did not consider the authority’s subsequent measures sufficient and so she issued a final statement where she suggested additional remedial measures, inter alia that the Inspectorate ensured that inspectors in future inspections would not disclose the complainant’s identity unless the statutory conditions were met (i.e. that the complainant consents to the disclosure of his or her identity and such procedure is necessary to ensure proper finding of facts).

The inspectorate adopted the proposed remedial measures and promised that all inspectors would comply with my recommendations and observe the described lawful procedure. The Defender subsequently closed the case.

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Relazione annuale 2018 del Difensore Civico Regionale

Date of article: 18/03/2019

Daily News of: 20/03/2019

Country:  Italy - Abruzzo

Author: Regional Ombudsman of Abruzzo

Article language: it

Si comunica che nell’apposita sezione del sito “Relazioni annuali” è stata pubblicata la Relazione del Difensore Civico Regionale, relativa all’attività svolta nel corso dell’anno 2018.

Buona lettura!

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