Pressemitteilungen

9. März 2021

Kontaktbeschränkungen während der Corona-Pandemie: Bürgerbeauftragte bietet auch Online-Sprechtage an

Die Bürgerbeauftragte unterstützt weiterhin die Entscheidung des Landtagspräsidenten, angesichts des aktuellen Infektionsgeschehens die Zahl der persönlichen Kontakte auf ein Mindestmaß zu reduzieren. Daher können auch in den kommenden Wochen persönliche Sprechtage vor Ort nicht stattfinden. Anstelle des am 16. März 2021 in Heide geplanten Sprechtags bietet die Bürgerbeauftragte nun aber erstmals eine Beratung im Online-Format an (...)

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The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman has asked London Borough of Redbridge to audit all children who receive Special Educational Needs provision at a borough school after the council left a boy without the support he needed for more than two years.

The boy attends a special school and has autism and a severe form of epilepsy, needing help with speech and language therapy (SALT), occupational therapy and physiotherapy. By the time he was due to start secondary school in 2015 he was too ill to attend.

Redbridge council did not carry out any assessments to find out whether he could access its home tuition service. He did not return to school for a full year, having not received any education or Special Needs provision in the preceding 12 months.

The boy’s mother queried what Special Educational Needs (SEN) provision her son was receiving at school. A breakdown provided by the school showed no evidence he was receiving either his occupational therapy or SALT provision. His mother started to pay for a weekly physiotherapy session with a different provider.

The ombudsman’s investigation found the council did not put in place adequate alternate provision for the boy, and did not review his Statement of SEN. It also took 27 weeks too long to transfer the boy’s Statement to an Educational Health and Care (EHC) Plan. This was not completed till May 2018, and meant the council missed out on the chance to meet the boys needs and identify and implement alternative provision. In total the boy missed out on his full SEN provision for 16 months after returning to school, on top of the provision he missed out on while unable to attend. It also denied the boy’s family the right to appeal the provision that was put in place.

Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said:

“Councils have a duty to meet the special educational provisions laid out in Statements and EHC Plans, but in this case the boy missed out on the therapies and support he needed for 16 months, and his mother felt forced to pay for services the council should have ensured were provided.

“I now urge Redbridge council to take on board the recommendations in my report and consider how they might implement them to improve services for children with Special Educational Needs in the borough."

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman’s role is to remedy injustice and share learning from investigations to help improve public, and adult social care, services. In this case the council should apologise to the boy and his family and pay £4,000 for his lost education and SEN provision for the 2015/16 school year. This should be used for the benefit of the boy’s education.

It should also pay the mum £2,400 to cover the cost of the boy’s physiotherapy sessions she arranged and paid for, a further £3,200 for the boy’s lost SEN provision from when he returned to school and £200 for the distress and time and trouble she was caused.

The Ombudsman has the power to make recommendations to improve processes for the wider public. In this case the council should remind staff that the council has a duty to assess children who are out of education due to poor health, and to provide a suitable alternative education. It should also complete an audit of all the children that receive SEN support at the boy’s school, to ensure this provision is being met. If it finds that it is not, it should put an action plan in place to address this. Those affected should also be told about the council’s complaints procedure.

Article date: 09 March 2021

The shocking story of the experience of a person who crossed the border of Lithuania reached the Seimas Ombudsman Augustinas Normantas: “I was detained while trying to obtain asylum and did not get an explanation for what reasons my freedom was restricted”. According to the person, the compulsory isolation procedure was more reminiscent of detention, since he was not provided with information in the language he could understand and his requests to isolate in a chosen place of residence were not taken into account. Worse, the detainee was not provided with adequate food for eight days; therefore, the officers of the State Border Guard Service, who felt compassion for the hungry person, had to buy him food from their own funds.

Having heard this story the Seimas Ombudsman Augustinas Normantas became very much concerned. According to the Ombudsman, the situation is disappointing because due to the State Border Guard Service officials’ actions related to the full isolation of a person who crossed the Lithuanian border, that took entire eight days, a timely decision could not be made regarding a permit to live in his chosen place of residence in Lithuania. That is why at the same time the issue could not be solved regarding the possibility for the person to be isolated not in the designated premises, but in his chosen place of residence, where, according to the Seimas Ombudsman, he would not have faced problems.

“This for us all awkward situation of a person who crossed the border reminded of a previous investigation, which pointed out that when individuals are not given an alternative opportunity to isolate themselves at home or in their chosen place of residence, they may experience undue inconvenience and stress, which under international law could be equaled to prohibited degrading treatment. Certainly, during the investigation, we also drew the attention of the State Border Guard Service to the need to adhere to the mandatory 24-hour deadline for the initial asylum procedures. We can only regret that in this case the deadline was exceeded as much as 7 times,” notes the Seimas Ombudsman Augustinas Normantas.

The Seimas Ombudsman’s attention was also drawn to the fact that the person was informed about his isolation only orally, without even making sure whether he understands the Lithuanian language. According to the Seimas Ombudsman, the person who crossed the border was not provided with the necessary and relevant information in a language he could understand. This allowed the Seimas Ombudsman to state that the officials had not properly informed the person about his compulsory isolation, which led to a misconception of the person that he had been detained by the officials, and for this reason the person had endured a lot of negative psychological experiences.

What is even more worrying is that during the investigation conducted by the Seimas Ombudsman, it was established that food for the the person who crossed the border was organized in accordance with the provisions of inappropriate legal acts, according to which food is organized only in cases where asylum seekers are detained for no more than 48 hours. The Seimas Ombudsman regrets to note that food of insufficient nutritional value has been provided to the person in the designated premises for as long as eight days, and such compulsory isolation conditions of the person extremely violate his dignity.

“After having established that a person was provided with inadequate food during his isolation, we first of all tried to find out whether at least its energy value could be equaled to the food that had to be organized by the municipal administration. Indeed, the doubts raised were reinforced by the goodwill and compassion shown by the officials who supervised the person who crossed the border. Officials told that due to the lack of food provided to the person they had to buy foodstuff from their own funds. Moreover, the day before his departure, the officials provided an opportunity for the representatives of the international Catholic organization “Lithuanian Caritas” to bring warm food to the person,” says the Seimas Ombudsman.

According to the Seimas Ombudsman, it should also be noted that during the isolation, the person’s written applications were answered by E-mail, although the legislation clearly stipulates that requests must be answered in the same way as they were provided. Moreover, during the investigation of the submitted complaint, it was established that the answers to the person that crossed the border were written in Lithuanian, although no data provided to the Seimas Ombudsman shows that the person could understand this language. These circumstances suggest that the officials provided the person with answers that did not comply with the requirements of the law.

After examining the situation, the Seimas Ombudsman drew the attention of the management of the State Border Guard Service to the fact that it is necessary to find out for what reasons the person was not provided with food established by legal acts. It was also recommended to take steps to ensure that in future the 24-hour deadline for initial action on asylum procedures is complied with and that persons are informed of the necessary isolation upon signed acknowledgement and in the language they understand and replies to requests are in the same form as the received requests or as specified in the request.

The Seimas Ombudsmen protect a person‘s right to good public administration, securing human rights and freedoms, and supervise fulfilment by state authorities of their duty to properly serve the people. The Seimas Ombudsmen also conduct national prevention of torture in places of deprivation of liberty in accordance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The Seimas Ombudsmen’s Office is a national human rights institution accredited with an „A status“ by the United Nations.

“European countries are failing to protect refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe via the Mediterranean. Backsliding in the protection of the lives and rights of refugees and migrants is worsening and causing thousands of avoidable deaths each year”, said today Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, while releasing a report entitled “A distress call for human rights. The widening gap in migrant protection in the Mediterranean”.

The report takes stock of member states’ implementation of the Commissioner’s 2019 Recommendation on rescuing migrants at sea and provides a set of actionable measures to be urgently taken by European states to ensure a human rights compliant approach to sea crossings. It covers developments from July 2019 until December 2020 in five key areas: effective search and rescue; timely and safe disembarkation of rescued persons; co-operation with non-governmental organisations; co-operation with third countries; and safe and legal routes; and focuses mainly on developments on the Central Mediterranean route. However, many of the required actions set out in this document are applicable to all other major migration routes in the Mediterranean region and on the Atlantic route from West Africa to Spain.

This report stresses that, despite some limited progress, the human rights situation in the Mediterranean remains deplorable. Shipwrecks continue to be worryingly recurrent, with more than 2,400 registered deaths in the period under consideration, a number which may well under-represent the real tally of deadly incidents. The growing disengagement of states’ naval capacity from the Mediterranean and the hindrance of NGOs’ rescue activities, as well as decisions to delay disembarkation and failure to assign a safe port, have undermined the integrity of the search and rescue system. Co-operation activities with third countries have been enhanced despite the undeniable evidence of serious human rights violations, and without the implementation of human rights safeguards including transparency and accountability principles. “On the Central Mediterranean route specifically, many developments appearing to be aimed at ‘clearing the field’ for interceptions by the Libyan Coast Guard have become institutionalised, leading to almost 20,000 recorded returns to serious human rights violations in Libya”, wrote the Commissioner. The COVID-19 pandemic has also led to the adoption of more restrictive measures, which have a direct negative impact on the human rights of migrants.  

In order to halt the widening of the gap in the protection of refugees and migrants crossing the Mediterranean and reverse the situation, the Commissioner renews her call on Council of Europe member states to implement swiftly her recommendations to ensure the preservation of human life and the protection of the human rights of people in distress at sea. In particular, she recommends guaranteeing the presence of adequate and sufficient state-led search and rescue capacity at sea; ensuring safe and prompt disembarkation of those rescued; allowing NGOs involved in search and rescue activities or human rights monitoring to carry out their work; ending pushbacks and other actions that expose refugees and migrants to return to serious human rights violations; and expanding safe and legal routes.

“It is high time for European countries to put an end to this shameful tragedy and to adopt human rights compliant migration policies. Member states must no longer delay taking action to save lives. It is a matter of life or death – and of the credibility of European countries’ commitment to human rights,” concluded the Commissioner.

• Read the Commissioner's follow-up report to the 2019 Recommendation on rescuing migrants at sea
  (soon available in French, Italian and Spanish)

Link: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2021-03/cp210035en.pdf

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Court of Justice of the European Union

PRESS RELEASE No 35/21

Luxembourg, 9 March 2021

Judgments in Cases C-344/19, D.J. v Radiotelevizija Slovenija, and C-580/19, RJ v Stadt Offenbach am Main

A period of stand-by time according to a stand-by system is not, in its entirety, working time unless the constraints imposed on the worker very significantly affect his or her ability to manage, during that period, his or her free time

The organisational difficulties that a period of stand-by time may entail for the worker and which are the result of natural factors or the free choice of that worker are not relevant In Case C-344/19, a specialist technician was responsible for ensuring the operation, for several consecutive days, of television transmission centres situated in the mountains in Slovenia. He provided, in addition to his twelve hours of normal work, services consisting in stand-by time, of six hours per day, according to a stand-by system. During those periods, he was not obliged to remain at the transmission centre in question, but was required to be contactable by telephone and to be able to return there within a time limit of one hour, if necessary. On the facts, due to the geographical location of the transmission centres, to which access was difficult, he was obliged to stay there while carrying out his stand-by time services, in service accommodation placed at his disposal by his employer, without many opportunities for leisure pursuits. 

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