The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatović, published today the report following her visit to Georgia in February 2022, with recommendations on combating discrimination against LGBTI people and those belonging to religious minorities, as well as protecting human rights in the fields of labour and the environment.

To ensure that LGBTI people and persons belonging to religious minorities live free from violence and discrimination, the Commissioner calls on the authorities to address the inadequate implementation of legal standards and the persistent deficiencies in combating impunity for hate crimes and incitement to violence, and to remove the discriminatory barriers to the enjoyment of their rights.

The Commissioner notes that LGBTI people remain affected by instances of hate crime and pervasive discrimination in Georgia. She calls on the authorities to step up efforts to combat impunity for human rights violations against them and stresses that raising awareness among the public and training relevant categories of professionals on the importance of their role in promoting equality, dignity and non-discrimination should be a priority. She adds that hate speech against LGBTI people in the public sphere is an issue of concern and that an appropriate response to hate speech, including when voiced by officials, religious and community leaders and media professionals, is needed through an effective use of law enforcement channels and other mechanisms, such as prevention, monitoring, self-regulation, and counter-speech. In light of repeated occurrence of LGBTI people having been denied their right to peaceful assembly, the Commissioner stresses that authorities should adopt comprehensive measures enabling LGBTI people to freely express their views and assemble. Regarding transgender people, the authorities should facilitate legal gender recognition without invasive medical requirements and in a quick, transparent, and accessible manner.

As regards religious minorities, the Commissioner urges the authorities to ensure effective investigation, prosecution, and dissuasive and proportionate sanctioning for hate crimes committed on the grounds of religion and to remove discriminatory barriers in accessing places of worship and in regulating tax and religious property matters. “An open dialogue with all religious communities should be established”, she stated. To support this dialogue, she underlines the need for a meaningful partnership between competent authorities and religious denominations, for changes to the relevant regulations and for continuous training and awareness raising activities targeting officials and the general public. In addition, the Commissioner notes that the authorities should pursue their efforts in eliminating religious biases and stereotyping from school textbooks.

Noting that a decade of deregulation and the abolishment of the labour Inspectorate in 2006 led to a significant deterioration in the protection of labour rights in Georgia, the Commissioner welcomes the recent comprehensive legal and institutional reforms and urges the authorities to close the remaining legislative gaps by establishing a minimum wage compliant with international standards, by ensuring equal access to parental leave, and by developing clear guidelines on the duration and compensation for overtime work. “It is now important to ensure a full implementation of the labour standards, including the anti-discrimination provisions”, she stated. To this end, it is crucial to provide the Labour Inspectorate with sufficient and adequately trained human resources and an appropriate budget. While welcoming recent progress in the reduction of workplace accidents, the Commissioner calls on the authorities to further improve occupational safety at the workplace. She also recommends promoting and supporting diversity and equality at work, including with regard to the integration of persons with disabilities. The Commissioner further recommends that the authorities address the gender pay gap and gender stereotypes in employment, to continuously raise awareness about sexual harassment, ways to report it and available remedies, as well as to take resolute action to address child labour and prevent and combat child trafficking.

As regards human rights and the environment, the Commissioner calls on the authorities to strengthen the implementation of the existing national legal framework, to guarantee public access to information and meaningful and transparent public participation in environmental decision-making processes at various levels of government, as well as to improve air quality and the tracking of air pollution. They should also develop and implement preventive measures to reduce the risk of environmental disasters and to ensure protection of the rights of people displaced by such disasters or owing to climate change. The authorities should also provide a safe and enabling environment for environmental human rights defenders and activists and support their work.

• Read the Commissioner's report following her visit to Georgia in February 2022
• Read the comments of the authorities of Georgia on the report
  • Watch the report in a nutshell

A vulnerable young Sheffield woman was told by the city council during its investigation into the abuse she suffered that she could have stopped it sooner if she had spoken up.

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman was asked to investigate after the woman and her family felt Sheffield City Council’s own inquiry into her complaint had not done enough to acknowledge the problems the young woman had faced since finding she had been abused.

Because of the impact on her mental health, the young woman has been unable to attend college, yet the council did not put in place alternative education to ensure she maintained her studies.

The young woman, who has epilepsy and visual impairments, had been provided with a care worker by the city council and the local NHS clinical commissioning group to help meet her needs and manage her seizures.

In 2017, she became increasingly withdrawn until she told her mother her care worker had been disclosing intimate and confidential details about other service users to her and unloading their personal problems. The woman felt angry and disrespected and was concerned the care worker was also breaching her own confidentiality.

The family urged the council to investigate, but it delayed completing its safeguarding investigation into the actions of the care provider. During the investigation, the council told the woman she could have stopped the abuse had she spoken up sooner.

When the family asked for different care workers, the council wrongly told them the only other option involved them paying a 'top-up’ fee.

The woman and her mother also complained that her care plans were not updated properly, and at times were ‘neglectful, dangerously uninformed and posed a danger’ to her. The young woman’s Education Health and Care Plan was also not updated properly, and she was out of education for a significant period until March 2021.

The council’s own investigations acknowledged the issues the family faced, that there were significant gaps in the council’s service, and it has made a number of changes to the way it works with young adults.

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

“The council has failed this vulnerable young woman many times over during an extended period, at a time when she was most at need of support and even sought to lay some of the blame for the abuse continuing on her. This has had a significant impact on her mental health and delayed her natural progression into adulthood and further education.

“It is to its credit that the council has acknowledged the significant problems faced by this young woman and her mother, and accepted my recommendations. I hope the changes it has already pledged to make, and the learning it will take away from this case, will ensure young people moving between Children’s and Adult Services will not be put at such a significant disadvantage in future.”

The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman remedies injustice and shares learning from investigations to help improve public, and adult social care, services. In this case the council has agreed to refund the £605 which the woman wrongly paid towards her care, plus interest. It will also pay the woman and her mother £1,500 each to recognise their distress and time and trouble in trying to get the council to put things right over a number of years.

The council will also pay the woman £500 for every month where the council failed to provide her with education from September 2017 until the current provision was put in place. It will consider any discretion it has to provide educational support to her beyond the age of 25.

Article date: 14 July 2022

he Ombudsman inquiry into the Commission’s handling of a request for text messages between its President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company is a wake-up call for all EU institutions about ensuring accountability in an era of instant messaging.

One year after the initial request by a journalist, the Commission has still not clarified whether messages reported to concern major vaccine procurement deals exist and whether the public is entitled to see them.

The Ombudsman had asked the Commission, in a finding of maladministration in January, to conduct a more thorough search for the text messages.

The Commission’s recent response failed to say whether it had looked directly and correctly for the text messages and if not, why not.

While the response recognised that work-related text messages can be EU documents, it reiterated that the Commission’s internal policy is, in effect, not to register text messages.

The Ombudsman has closed the inquiry and upheld her finding of maladministration.

“The Commission’s response to my findings neither answered the basic question of whether the text messages in question exist nor provided any clarity on how the Commission would respond to a specific request for other text messages,” said Emily O’Reilly.

“The handling of this access to documents request leaves the regrettable impression of an EU institution that is not forthcoming on matters of significant public interest.”

“Public access to work-related text messages is a new area for the EU administration and one that needs to be tackled substantively and in good faith. This inquiry is a wake-up call to all EU institutions.”

“The recent revelations about lobbying tactics by an American multinational in Europe, including leaked text messages, shows the urgency of this issue for public administrations.” said the Ombudsman.

Recommendations for recording work-related text messages

Separately, after gathering information on the rules and practices on the recording of text and instant messages across the EU administration, the Ombudsman is today publishing practical recommendations for dealing with this issue.

The recommendations (see full list here) say that:

• Work-related text and instant messages should be recognised as EU documents.
• Technological solutions should be put in place to enable the easy recording of such messages.
• Staff should have clear guidance on how such messages should be recorded.
• Requests for public access to documents that could cover text messages should be dealt with in a way that considers all locations where such messages might be stored.

Background

In April 2021, the New York Times published an article in which it reported that the Commission President and the CEO of a pharmaceutical company had exchanged texts related to the procurement of COVID-19 vaccines. This prompted a journalist to request public access to text messages and other documents relating to the exchange.  The complainant turned to the Ombudsman after the Commission had not identified any text messages as falling within the scope of his request.

The Ombudsman inquiry revealed that the Commission did not explicitly ask the President’s cabinet to look for text messages. Instead, it asked her cabinet to look for documents that fulfil the Commission’s internal criteria for recording - text messages are not considered to meet these criteria. The Ombudsman found that this amounted to maladministration and asked it to do a more extensive research for the text messages.

Regulation 1049/2001, which sets out the public’s right to access EU documents, defines a document as “any content whatever its medium (written on paper or stored in electronic form or as a sound, visual or audiovisual recording) concerning a matter relating to the policies, activities and decisions falling within the institution's sphere of responsibility”.

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Rafael Yanes y Felipe Afonso visitaron la sede de la Asociación de Personas con Discapacidad Física de La Palma para mostrar los resultados obtenidos en el Informe Extraordinario de la Institución sobre Dependencia en Canarias

El Diputado del Común, Rafael Yanes, y el adjunto primero, Felipe Afonso, se reunieron con representantes de la Asociación de Personas con Discapacidad Física de La Palma (ADFILPA), para hacerles entrega del Informe Extraordinario sobre la Situación del Sistema para la Autonomía y la Atención a la Dependencia en Canarias.

Yanes y Afonso visitaron la sede de la entidad y trasladaron a los miembros de ADFILPA algunos de los resultados obtenidos a través de este informe extraordinario, en el que colaboró la Dirección General de Dependencia y Discapacidad del Gobierno de Canarias, la Asociación Estatal de Directoras y Gerentes en Servicios Sociales, los cabildos insulares, las defensorías autonómicas, los colegios profesionales, las entidades del Tercer Sector y las asociaciones de familiares.