Lundi 30 mars, le Défenseur des droits a attiré l’attention du gouvernement et des professionnels du commerce et de la distribution sur les difficultés rencontrées par les personnes bénéficiant d'une mesure de protection judiciaire (régime de tutelle, de curatelle, ou de sauvegarde de justice) qui se voient refuser des règlements en espèces dans certains commerces ou grandes enseignes de la distribution.

Ces personnes, dites « majeurs protégés », ainsi que certaines personnes en situation de précarité sociale ou économique ne disposent pas de tous des moyens de paiement classiques, comme des cartes de paiement ou des chèques.

Pourtant, certains commerçants refusent désormais le paiement en espèces, privilégiant les paiements électroniques qui ne nécessitent pas de contact entre le caissier et le client.

De telles pratiques ont pour effet de désavantager les majeurs protégés ainsi que les personnes en situation de précarité sociale ou économique qui ne disposent pas d’un compte bancaire, en les privant des produits de premières nécessité. Cette situation relève des textes qui interdisent les discriminations, notamment la loi n° 2008-496 du 27 mai 2008.

Le refus de paiement en espèces dans les commerces ne fait pas partie des mesures restrictives relatives à la lutte contre la propagation du virus Covid-19, telles que détaillées dans la loi du 23 mars 2020 relative à l’état d’urgence sanitaire et les ordonnances d’application.

Aussi, dans cette période exceptionnelle, le Défenseur des droits rappelle :

• l’importance de garantir aux majeurs protégés et aux personnes en situation de précarité sociale ou économique l’utilisation des moyens de paiement nécessaires aux achats de première nécessité
• l’existence de bonnes pratiques de la part des commerçants, consistant à ouvrir des comptes pour les achats de première nécessité que le mandataire judiciaire pourra régler ultérieurement.

We sincerely hope you and your close ones are doing ok during these extremely challenging times. This is a situation which is new to all of us and affects both our private and professional lives. It is also a time where difficult and restrictive political decisions have to be made rapidly. This notwithstanding, we find it important that partnerships are not forgotten and that the voice of those affected by policies is taken into account as – hopefully – there will be a normalisation of the situation in the not too distant future, and a lot of recovery work will have to be done.

Following the high-level conference “Engaging Citizens for Good Governance in Cohesion Policy”, we have a few points of information:

CALL FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FOR AUTHORITIES – EXTENDED DEADLINE

As announced at the conference, managing authorities and intermediate bodies of ERDF and CF operational programmes are invited to apply to participate in the pilot project “Engaging citizens in the implementation of cohesion policy”. If selected, they will benefit from tailored advisory support in developing a closer cooperation with citizens and/or civil society organisations in the implementation of cohesion policy. The advisory support will be provided in close cooperation with the OECD. Please see the call for expression of interest. The deadline to apply has been extended to 30 April 2020.

On the same page you will also find a call for expression of interest for central coordination bodies and managing authorities to participate in a pilot on civic engagement in monitoring EU-funded projects in the “Open Cohesion School”, with a deadline 16 April 2020.

OPEN CALL FOR CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS

As announced at the conference, we have also just launched an open call for proposals targeting civil society. Civil society organisations are invited to submit their proposals for tools or actions supporting citizen engagement in the implementation of cohesion policy. The call is available here with a deadline to apply by 31 May 2020.

EXPERTS WANTED

If you have expertise and experience in cooperation between authorities and citizens/CSO and are willing to share your knowledge, we would be happy to hear from you.

• If you are an external expert from a CSO, academia etc. we invite you to express your interest to support the implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) by submitting your application for our “AMI list” of experts here.
• If you are a civil servant (at any level) from an EU member state, with proven experience in engaging citizens in policy-making and implementation, you are welcome to apply to share your expertise under the REGIO Peer-2-Peer scheme. REGIO P2P offer managing authorities, intermediate bodies and other institutions involved in the management of funding under ERDF and Cohesion fund, a chance to meet and exchange practices on how to engage citizens in cohesion policy. Apply online and we will help you find the best expertise to respond to your needs.

We would also like to remind you of our conference website where you will find information about the speakers, recordings of all plenary sessions, a conference report, statistics from the survey we were running in Member States and during the conference and more.

Best regards,

When:

02 April 2020

 

LIBE Committee

 

External event

Systematic visits and monitoring of expulsion

We visited five facilities and monitored one administrative expulsion of a foreign national, specifically from the Facility for Detention of Foreigners in Bělá-Jezová via Václav Havel Airport in Prague.

We initiated a new series of visits focusing on social services facilities – special regime homes providing care to persons with reduced self-reliance due to a chronic mental illness or addiction to dependency producing substances. The first visited facility was Domov ve Věži in the Vysočina region.

We then continued with facilities for institutional and protective education as we visited the Educational Institution in Višňové and Educational Institution Husův Dům in Dvůr Králové nad Labem. We also visited the Psychiatric Clinic at the Olomouc University Hospital and the Facility for Detention of Foreigners in Balková.

Report on the execution of forensic treatment

We presented a report dealing with the execution of forensic treatment, means of restraint and further topics. This report on visits to psychiatric hospitals points out the inadequate legal framework of forensic treatment and further systemic and individual shortcomings of its execution. Ambiguities relate to treatment without the patient’s consent, legitimacy and scope of “regime measures” (getting outside, the possibility of wearing one’s own clothes and using own things, including a telephone), use of security equipment (cameras, bars), etc. The issues we found present a threat to the staff and other patients. Therefore, we requested in the report that appropriate measures be adopted by the responsible ministries, i.e. the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice.

Meeting aimed at expulsion monitoring

We organised a meeting with representatives of institutions that participate in the preparation and implementation of forced returns of foreign nationals. We informed the participants from the ranks of the Directorate of the Immigration Police, the Prison Service of the Czech Republic and the Refugee Facilities Administration of the Ministry of the Interior about our findings obtained during expulsion monitoring over the three years of the project titled Support for the Effective Monitoring of Forced Returns, registration number AMIF/8/02, financed from the EU Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund. The project, which ended on 31 October 2019, reinforced our activities as an independent and effective system for monitoring forced returns of foreign nationals. We monitored a total of 120 expulsions. In this way, we help to make return operations more effective in returning illegally staying foreigners back to their countries of origin.

International activities

We have already worked as the national preventive mechanism (NPM) for over 13 years. We our happy to share our experience. And we also want to learn from others. That is why we hosted our colleagues from Ukraine for two days and shared experience with them. In Ukraine, the NPM activities are also performed by the ombudsman.

As supervisors, we participated in international training organised by the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) in co-operation with the Frontex agency. The training was aimed at familiarising our colleagues from other countries who monitor the course of the return operations with critical moments that can occur during the expulsion.