ERRC legal defense work with a focus on anti-discrimination litigation
(Last modified: 2004-08-23 11:47:36)
ERRC’s core legal defence work is to initiate impact human rights litigation on behalf of Roma before domestic and international courts to achieve the following:
a) encourage more interest among local lawyers for Roma rights litigation and to develop their capacity,
b) generate judicial opinions which expand human rights protection for Roma through creative legal argument and reliance on international and comparative human rights jurisprudence, and
c) ultimately, bring about social change on a scale which would benefit Roma throughout Europe.
ERRC achieves these goals by selecting cases that have the potential to change existing legal practices, as well as to trigger comprehensive reform of relevant legislation. Because of our extensive network of lawyers, Roma rights advocates and our own local research monitors, ERRC can select cases from across Europe. After exhausting domestic remedies, ERRC often brings the case before the European Court of Human Rights or United Nations treaty bodies such as the Human Rights Committee, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Committee Against Torture, or the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. In the future, we will ask for cases to be referred to the European Court of Justice.
Current ERRC cases fall into three major categories:
a) racial discrimination against Roma,
b) racially motivated violence against Roma perpetrated by police officers, or skinheads and other non-state actors, and
c) immigration and asylum cases concerning serious human rights abuses.
In particular, ERRC has focused on a number of areas in anti-discrimination law and practice which are of significant concern to Roma, and where litigation was deemed to have the potential of achieving positive reform:
a) discrimination in access to public accommodations,
b) discrimination in housing,
c) in the criminal justice system,
d) in employment,
e) in the provision of social services, and
f) in the provision of health care.
Country-specific anti-discrimination projects form part of ERRC’s overall efforts to provide training and financial assistance to local human rights lawyers, and to encourage them to incorporate international jurisprudence into human rights claims brought before domestic courts. In this context the EU Race Equality Directive is clearly a guiding intrument both in terms of how the existing laws ought to be interpreted and as a road map to future reform of the relevant domestic legislation.
Please find below a non-exhaustive list of some of our most significant cases involving discrimination. Please note that numerous cases of racially motivated violence handled by the ERRC have not been included in this list - the focus instead being on incidents concerning acts of discrimination.
Bulgaria
A case involving segregation and discrimination in a hospital where all Romani women were placed in specified "Romani maternity wards". Hygienic conditions in the Romani wards were worse and there was no heating during winter. (Anguelova)
Three cases in which schools segregated Romani pupils. (75th School, St Kiril and Methodius school, and Krum Popov school)
Three cases involving Romani men who were refused job positions because of their ethnic backgrounds. (Asenov, Metodiev)
A case involving the refusal of an employer to offer a job position to a Romani woman based on her ethnicity. (Metodi Kirilov case)
Croatia
A case involving the death of a newborn baby as a result of the refusal by the local hospital to respond to an emergency call to come to a Romani settlement in order to provide the mother with assistance during delivery. (Orsos Ambulance case)
Czech Republic
After a racial attack, prosecutors did not apply the racially motivated crime provisions of Czech law. (Dvorek)
A criminal and civil complaint was brought for refusal to service Roma at a public restaurant. (Club Vegas)
A civil claim was filed for violation of rental contracts based on race. (Polak)
Greece
A forced eviction case carried out in the presence of the local Mayor and the police, in violation of relevant domestic legal provisions. (Nea Zoe-Aspropirgos case)
A hate speech case in which a number of non-Romani residents signed a racist petition complaining about the local Roma residents in their area and generally accusing them of illegal behavior without any supporting evidence. (Patras)
A case in which the local authorities brought criminal charges against 27 Roma for allegedly violating sanitary provisions in a temporary settlement, even though the Roma in question had the necessary permits and were previously acquitted of the same charges. (Vasileiou)
Hungary
Three housing discrimination cases involving the mass eviction of many Romani families by private companies without affording them the rights given to other non-Roma families. (Hungarian Housing case, Budapest 2nd district case, Budapest 11th district case)
Two cases in which the local government tried to stop the sale of houses to Romani families, on racial grounds. (Szilagyi and Kahlik)
A case in which a Romani woman was not awarded compensation following a work- related accident that resulted in the death of her husband. (Kanalas)
A social assistance case concerning the disparate impact of a law regulating the provision of nursing benefits to family members who have chosen to stay at home in order to care for disabled relatives. (Balazs)
A health care discrimination case in which a Romani woman lost her uterus and gave birth to a mentally and physically disabled baby due to negligence on the part of hospital staff. (Danyi)
A case involving discrimination in the provision of urgent medical assitance resulting in the death of a Romani woman (Horvath)
Three employment discrimination cases in which the applicants were denied a job as soon as the employer realized that they were Roma. (Vadaszi, Farkas and Puporka)
A health care case concerning discriminatory practices in a local hospital. (Janos Horvath)
An employment case concerning the wrongful termination of the working contract of a Romani woman. (Rostas)
A case in which a government-run hospital sterilised a Romani woman without her fully informed consent. (S.)
Kosovo
ERRC attacks lead poisoning in Kosovo Roma camps
Macedonia
Two men were victims of police abuse. (Memet & Skender)
A school teacher was violent to a Roma student. (Ramadanova)
Romania
A forced evictions case concerning a Romani family whose members were severely beaten by the police due to their refusal to abandon their market stand to which the had valid legal title. (Pandele)
Russia
A Roma mother has been deprived of access to her children with a Russian citizen. (Mihalenko)
The city of Arkangelsk refuses to allow Roma to build on their own land. (Hullipy Gomon)
Near Samara, a Roma village is segregated and has appalling conditions while authorities claim there is no legal title. (Residence Registration)
Serbia
A public accommodation case concerning a young Romani couple who were not allowed to enter a local disco. (Durmic)
A case in which security guards at a club in Belgrade denied Petar and Ljutvija Antic and Zorica Stojkovic admission to the premises because of their Roma ethnicity. (Acapulco Club)
A petition before the Serbian Constitutional Court challenging the constitutionality of the Programme for the Protection of the Population from Infectious Deceases, in which Roma are regarded as of a high risk, and should be immunized. (Serbian Constitutional Court case)
Slovakia
Four cases from Slovakia in which young Romani women were sterilized in the absence of informed consent during the course of caesarian sections. (Cases A, B, C and D)
A case of employment discrimination concerning the wrongful dismissal of a Romani teacher from a local school (Drapak)
A case in which a five-month-old Roma baby died as a result of the long delay of the ambulance medical service team to come to the Romani settlement to give medical asssitance to the mother. (Huberova)
Two housing discrimination cases in which Romani families were evicted from apartment buildings located in the city centre as part of an attempt to increase the property value of their real estate. (Siposova)
A case in which Romani property was destroyed, the Romani victims were then evicted from the village by the Mayor, the land was appropriated by the village council and alternative accommodation was refused to the affected Romani families. (Zahorska Ves)
Ukraine
Wrongful arrest (Kovach)
Police abuse. (Balogh)
Medical malpractice in connection with C-section for birth. (Balog)
Refusal to grant legal papers and housing registration. (Latsko)
A Roma village was robbed and burned by Ukrainians. Criminal charges filed. (Burlya)
Refusal to provide adequate accommodation based on race. (Kutsenko)
Medical malpractice resulting in severe harm to newborn baby. (Miroslava)
In view of the significance of the EU Race Equality Directive, the ERRC will continue to build test cases in current EU member states and in the accession countries. We plan to target both the countries that have already transposed the Directive as well as those that have either failed to do so or have adopted inadequate domestic legislation. We believe that this will provide us with a unique opportunity to test in practice the “direct effect” of the EU Race Equality Directive and indeed the domestic courts’ understanding of the new concepts introduced in this instrument. We will continue with our anti-discrimination litigation effort in other countries as well and in doing so invoke the relevent international anti-discrimination documents, including the guiding standards contained in the EU Race Equality Directive. |
