La Défenseure des droits publie ce jour le Guide du lanceur d’alerte pour accompagner les lanceurs d’alerte et ceux qui les soutiennent dans leurs démarches.

Lancer une alerte consiste à signaler ou divulguer des faits répréhensibles (crimes, délits…) ou contraires à l’intérêt général (comportements potentiellement dangereux pour la population). C’est un droit. Et les lanceurs d’alerte ont le droit d’être protégés contre les mesures négatives prises à leur encontre en raison de leur alerte.

Néanmoins, pour pouvoir bénéficier de ces protections, il faut respecter un cadre légal très strict, qui a évolué en 2022 (loi n°2022-401).

Qu’est-ce qu’une alerte ? Quelles sont les procédures de signalement ? Quelles sont les règles de confidentialité ? Quelles protections sont accordées au lanceur d’alerte contre les représailles ? Les démarches à suivre et conditions à respecter pour pouvoir être reconnu lanceur d’alerte sont précises. Ce guide pratique s’adresse directement à ceux qui lancent une alerte ou souhaiteraient le faire pour les aider à se repérer et connaître leurs droits et obligations.

Sur quoi peut porter l’alerte ? Auprès de qui lancer l’alerte ? Peut-on rendre son alerte publique ? Le guide répond à ces différentes questions et donne des conseils pratiques pour pouvoir lancer son alerte dans le respect des textes et bénéficier ainsi des protections.

Ce guide explique également comment le Défenseur des droits peut aider les lanceurs d’alerte. En effet, le Défenseur des droits est l’autorité en charge de l’accompagnement des lanceurs d’alerte depuis 2016 et son rôle a été renforcé en 2022 (loi organique n° 2022-400). Désormais chargé de s’assurer du bon fonctionnement global de la protection des lanceurs d’alerte en France, il accompagne les lanceurs d’alerte aux différentes étapes de leur parcours :

• informer sur leurs droits et leurs obligations

• orienter dans les démarches de signalement, c’est-à-dire auprès de qui porter l’alerte

• certifier le lanceur d’alerte, en rendant un avis indiquant s’il a bien respecter les conditions prévues par la loi pour pouvoir bénéficier de la protection destinée aux lanceurs d’alerte

• protéger en cas de représailles, en recommandant des mesures à l’auteur de l’alerte ou en présentant des observations devant le juge

• traiter les alertes relevant de ses propres missions, c’est-à-dire dans les domaines des droits de l’enfant, des discriminations, de la déontologie des personnes exerçant des activités de sécurité et des relations avec les services publics.

 Guide du lanceur d'alerte (03/2023)

Les faits

Au décès de son père en 2019, M. H. hérite d'un immeuble et le met en vente. Suite au changement d'abonné (formulaire envoyé par la nouvelle propriétaire) début 2020, il reçoit une facture d’un montant de 2187,36 € pour 12 années de consommation.

Il se demande pourquoi aucune facture n’a été envoyée pendant un laps de temps aussi important et s'il n'existe pas un délai de prescription.

L’intervention du Médiateur

Le Médiateur interpelle l'IDEN afin d'obtenir des éclaircissements à propos de ce dossier.

L’issue de la médiation

Il apparaît que la maison a appartenu à la grand-mère du réclamant jusqu'en 2007. Cette année là, la dame avait demandé la suspension de la facturation pour non-occupation de l'immeuble, ce que l'IDEN avait accepté. Peu après, la dame décède et le père du réclamant en hérite.

Toutefois, celui-ci n'avertit pas l'IDEN du décès de sa maman et occupe la maison de temps en temps sans s'étonner de ne recevoir aucune facture d'eau.

La facturation étant suspendue dans le système informatique, il n'y a eu aucune demande de relevé d'index depuis 2007. La "réactivation" de cette maison n'a eu lieu qu'à l'occasion du transfert de compte en 2020 et la facture a été établie en étalant la consommation sur 12 années aux différents tarifs en vigueur pour chaque exercice.

Le Médiateur conclut au bien-fondé de la facture de clôture. En effet, bien que l'IDEN ait fait preuve d'inattention en ce dossier, la situation est aussi due à la négligence des abonnés successifs. Par ailleurs, le délai de prescription de 5 ans ne court qu'à partir de la date de la facture et n'est donc pas d'application ici.

Le Médiateur a cependant attiré l’attention de l’IDEN sur son obligation d’établir des factures annuelles et des factures d’acompte, au minimum
trimestrielles, pour éviter qu’une telle situation se reproduise à l’avenir.

Upon its own initiative, based on information from the media that in Jagodina a mother to five children died today due to injuries suffered after having been beaten by her extramarital partner who was arrested, the Protector of Citizens initiated the oversight procedure of legality and regularity of the operation of the City Center for Social Work there and Ministry of Interior.

The Protector of Citizens requires from Jagodina Center for Social Work to provide information not later than within 15 days if the extramarital partner and killed wife are in their records, if in the previous period there were reports of violence, if they were considered in the Group for coordination and cooperation with special emphasis on the measures and activities which the Center, in cooperation with other organs, potentially took in order to provide adequate support and protection to the victim of partner violence.

It requires from the Ministry of Interior to submit within the same deadline a detailed report on acting of competent police administration in this case, as well as on the realized cooperation with the competent center for social work, prosecutor’s office and other authorities upon earlier reports of partner violence, if they were filed as well as if such actions of police were in compliance with the obligations prescribed by the Law on prevention of domestic violence.

The Ombudsman sent a Recommendation to the Government to promote approval of a new and appropriate regime of protection for teachers during illness, that includes the possibility of adapting the teaching load and functions exercised to the respective state of health.

Regarding the system of teachers’ mobility due to illness, it was also recommended that the list of illnesses that allow mobility be revised and updated, and that a solution be found to prevent teachers from being penalised for the current delays in issuing multi-use medical certificates (AMIM).

The Recommendation arises in the wake of the many complaints received regarding the mobility regime due to illness and the consultation made with the Government in October 2022 on this matter, which did not receive a response.

With this initiative, the Ombudsman hopes that the recommendations will be taken into account by the Government in the scope of the negotiations underway with the Unions on various aspects of the teaching profession regime, and that they may already have an effect on the next tender for mobility through illness for the 2023/2024 school year.

To read the full Recommendation, click here [in Portuguese only].

Roma Equality, non-discrimination and racism

Speaker Michael O’Flaherty

Event (Più) Partecipazione, Inclusione e Uguaglianza

FRA Director, Michael O'Flaherty, spoke at the “(Più) Partecipazione, Inclusione e Uguaglianza” event about the challenges Roma and Travellers face in Europe. In his speech, he suggested steps to ensure full respect for their human rights. CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY.

Director General,

Dear Friends,

Thank you for the invitation to join you today. I welcome this initiative and I applaud the high focus you are giving to the critical issue of full respect for the human rights of Roma, Sinti, and Travellers. I welcome the adoption of the National Strategy 2021-2030. I appreciate the initiative of convening us here on the Campidoglio, the symbolic heart of governance, with a resonance for people everywhere.

Colleagues, after nearly eight years as director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights - FRA, I am convinced that the experience of Roma in our societies is one of the defining human rights issues of our time. The extent of exclusion and marginalisation of the EU’s 6 million-strong community of Roma women, men and children is a cause of great shame.

Several years ago, I was in a small village – not in Italy - where I was invited into a Roma lady’s home. It was a very poor house, some broken windows, desperately in need of paint. There was no inside toilet, the yard was scruffy, overgrown and all her neighbours were Roma. These Roma were, in a sense, pushed to that part of the village by the local community. What I remember most of all is the fact that this woman kept apologising to me. She apologised for the fact that the house was not very presentable, she apologised that her children were not well dressed, she apologised that she didn’t have anything to offer us by way of food or drink. She kept apologising and I got very angry. Not with her. I got angry that she should apologise to me. We, non-Roma, should be apologising to her, because it’s we, through our attitudes and our prejudice and our discrimination, that have shoved that woman to the edge of our society.

The evidence for our failure is overwhelming and sadly reinforced by my Agency’s research.

In our survey work with Roma and Travellers across the EU, one in four Roma reports being discriminated against. They report the discrimination in education, access to work, the workplace, engagement with the State, housing, healthcare and elsewhere. Patterns of attacks and harassment are equally disturbing. Our data indicates that the average of Roma people who have experienced hate-motivated harassment is 20%, with the figure for Italy being twice this. Violence against Roma is also high in Italy: one in ten Roma have experience racially motivated physical violence within the past year: five times the EU average.

Such acts of violence and discrimination are extremely underreported to the authorities. Underreporting is compounded by low levels of awareness of rights, as well as how and where to complain. On average, only half of Roma respondents to our surveys have heard of avenues of redress, such an equality body, national human rights institution, or ombudsperson. Many Roma also distrust the police, with 14% of survey respondents in Ireland believing that the most recent stop by police was carried out because they are an Irish Traveller.

It will come as no surprise that Roma fare very badly in terms of respect for their socio-economic outcomes. As our surveys show, here in Italy, almost every Roma – 98%- is at risk of poverty, with the EU average not far behind at 83%.

Any analysis of the human rights situation of Roma requires reference to the extent of antigypsyism in our societies. The share of people not wanting Roma as neighbours is disturbingly high – especially here in Italy - at 65% in 2018. It is also commonplace to smear the entire Roma community with the unacceptable acts of individuals – such as labelling everyone a criminal because of the acts of a few. These problems of ‘othering’ are widespread and entrenched. And we see that they are exacerbated in moments of social unease, such as today. I recall the experience of a Ukrainian Roma child that colleagues of mine encountered in March of last year on her arrival into the EU. She was refused access to a bus because the people onboard did not want Roma on the bus. This same child had difficulty finding somewhere to sleep that night, again because people did not want to share their space with her.

(...)