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September 7th, 2008

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Klaus vetoes crucial anti-discrimination bill

Politicians and activists decry violation of EU directive against racism

By Markéta Hulpachová
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 28th, 2008 issue

Six years ago, Ostrava resident Petr Cína became a crusader for Roma rights by walking into a bar. Outraged by the accounts of his Romany friends who consistently complained of being refused entry to neighborhood pubs, the then-20-year-old student decided to expose the underreported activity. Armed with concealed audio recorders, Cína headed to a watering hole notorious for discriminating against the Roma and was not surprised when he and his two accomplices were barred from entering. “The reason was clear — we were Gypsies,” he said. The verbal exchange that ensued was documented, allowing a local human rights NGO to sue the establishment.

“The bar ended up getting fined,” Cína recalled. “But even though the outcome was positive, it didn’t really help anything. The overall situation hasn’t improved much.”

When filing a suit against pub owners accused of discrimination, local NGOs face a legal hurdle: Unlike its 26 fellow European Union member states, the Czech Republic is the only one yet to implement an anti-discrimination law.

“People who are refused entry into pubs based on their race often have difficulty seeking justice,” said Kumar Vishwanathan, director of Life Together, an Ostrava equal-rights NGO. “The term ‘discrimination’ is not clearly defined by Czech law.”

Bound by an EU directive requiring all member states to adopt anti-discrimination legislation, the government proposed a framework anti-discrimination bill at the end of 2007. After gaining parliamentary approval in April, however, the bill died on the desk of President Václav Klaus, who vetoed it May 16.

“I consider the proposed bill useless, counterproductive and low-quality,” Klaus wrote in an open letter to Miloslav Vlček, chairman of the lower house. “Its [potential] fallout could be very problematic.”

In the letter, Klaus goes on to argue that any improvements to inadequate legislation should be made through individual amendments to existing laws rather than brand-new framework legislation.

“[EU] states are bound by a responsibility to implement these measures, but … it is up to them to figure out how to transform these directives into their legal order,” he wrote. “The ‘framework law’ method was chosen by our government, not the EU.”

According to Klaus, the law is also flawed from a philosophical perspective, because it bulldozes natural differences between individuals by forcibly removing inequalities. “This law wants to objectify our decision-making, which is nothing less than a politically correct utopia,” he wrote.

“The idea that any sort of law can create the state of equality social engineers long for is thankfully false.”

Klaus also criticized the bill’s individual elements, such as a clause that shifts the burden of proof from the plaintiff to the defendant. “It’s absolutely absurd,” he wrote. “It is in violation of ours as well as Europe’s legal principles and traditions, and it may bring new injuries and injustices.”

Backward step

Not all politicians share Klaus’ skepticism. One day after the president returned the bill to Parliament, Green Party Chairman Martin Bursík and Human Rights and Minorities Minister Džamila Stehlíková called a Cabinet meeting to remedy Klaus’ “detrimental actions,” which they said violated the government’s pro-European orientation.

“The bill was based on a two-year effort to reach an acceptable compromise, and was accepted across the political spectrum,” said Stehlíková. “The veto is a significant step back in our integration and casts a shadow on our effort to cooperate with the EU.” As the only EU country that has not yet adopted the legislation, the Czech Republic now faces serious sanctions, she added.

Faced with Klaus’ criticism of its structure, Stehlíková said a brand-new framework law was needed to enable straightforward interpretation and establish a basis for future amendments.

“All European countries opted for a framework law. … The bill’s wording is purposely succinct,” she added. “The idea is to prompt certain societal changes, to get people to understand what discrimination is. If these legislative changes are tucked away in various amendments, the social impact will be significantly lowered.”

The lack of a unified definition for discrimination is a legal dilemma local NGOs face regularly, Vishwanathan said. His Romany clients include parents whose children were excluded from certain public schools and families forced to live in flooded homes while their white neighbors received emergency housing. “Technically, it’s all discrimination, but we have no law to invoke when filing the lawsuit,” he said. “We resolve most of these subtler cases by claiming a violation of personal rights.”

Legal divide

Vojtěch Hlavička, director of an anti-discrimination hotline for the Roma rights organization Romea, has had similar experiences. “The failure to pass the anti-discrimination bill is catastrophic for us, mainly because the burden of proof rests on the victim,” he said. According to Hlavička, the most frequent race-based discrimination cases occur when the victim is applying for a job, usually during one-on-one conversations that are later impossible to confirm.

“The employer sees a dark-skinned man or woman and tells them a position that was available half an hour beforehand has been filled,” he said. “Under the anti-discrimination law, it would be up to the employer to prove that someone else had really already been hired for the job.”

In addition to shifting the burden of proof, the vetoed bill provided Czech citizens with the first clear definition of discrimination by limiting possible motives to seven areas, including gender, age, race and sexual orientation, said Martina Štěpánková, a legal adviser at the Consultation Center for Citizenship, Civic and Human Rights in Prague.

“In the Czech Republic, discrimination is fairly frequent, as it is elsewhere in Europe,” she said. “However, most local cases are not dealt with in courts because they are so difficult to prove. … Of course, the bill in itself would not stop people from discriminating, but it would increase the victim’s chance to react and raises the general public’s understanding.”

Even legal experts appear sharply divided on the issue, however.

Unlike Štěpánková, lawyer Václav Vlk welcomed Klaus’ veto, voicing concern that a general anti-discrimination law may lead to rampant abuse of the legal system.

“In my practice, I’ve encountered cases where a restaurateur was fined for refusing to sell a child-size portion to an adult with the reasoning that the plaintiff was discriminated against because he was an adult,” he said. “I am afraid there are worse things to come.”

Markéta Hulpachová can be reached at mhulpachova@praguepost.com

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