Introduction
K.A.NE.’s contribution in the Commemoration of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on the 9th of May, was through our participation and presentation at thesections “Roundtable - Why we need the EU Charter?” and the “Online partner's activity – Presentation of case studies in the world or in partners countries followed by debates on fundamental rights”. Roundtable - Why we need the EU Charter? Filaretos Vourkos, the Founder and Director of K.A.NE. participate in the roundtable and present the “EUCharterof Fundamental Rights in Greece”. During his presentation he supported the need of EU Charter by giving examples of the Charter’s use and highlighting how it adds value.The Charteris a legally binding document. It includes civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights. Moreover, it benefits from the strength of EU law, which often has direct effect and, in principle and unlike international law, must be granted supremacy over national law. However, in many contexts it may not be possible to directly invoke the Charter – for instance, because the respective Charter provision is a principle and not a right and was not implemented by a legislative or executive act; or is otherwise not directly applicable; or does not apply at all because the case at hand falls outside the scope of EU law. In any case, the Charter increases the visibility of rights. It explicitly spells out rights and principles that are often not expressly laid out in other international human rights documents, such as the ECHR. Unlike the Council of Europe’s European Social Charter, the EU Charter does not offer the possibility to be bound only by selected provisions; Member States are bound by all of its provisions. Given the breadth of rights explicitly covered by the Charter, it can help to increase the visibility of rights at national level. Moreover, national courts do sometimes use the Charter to interpret or further develop national law, even outside the scope of EU law. Online partner's activity – Presentation of case studies in the world or in partners countries followed by debates on fundamental rights For this section FilaretosVourkos, the Founder and Director of K.A.NE. present the “Manolada Case. The Story Behind the 2 euros/kg Strawberries”.The case concerns 42 workers coming from Bangladesh, who were exploited in the strawberry fields in Manolada, in the Peloponnese. The case was brought in front of the Greek Court after an extreme episode that happened in 2013, which was well covered by the media: irregular migrant workers were shot and several got injured because they protested for not having received their wages for many months. The conditions of the irregular migrant workers in Manolada were really tough, since the workers were not paid and they were often beaten. Moreover, the field owners continuously threatened to call the police and have them arrested, because they were undocumented. Last but not least, the workers had to buy basic goods from the “owner” and many times did not even have running water and electricity. Despite the situation, the Greek Court stated this could not be considered as a case of labour trafficking, since the workers could stop working at any time; moreover, only a fine was given to the field owners that opened fire. After the Greek Court’s judgement, the case was brought in front of the European Court of Strasbourg, where the victims can appeal when a State violates or does not prevent the violation of a fundamental human right. The Court’s sentence is a very important one, because, for the first time, the European Court treats a case concerning forced labour of irregular migrant workers (there had been cases of children forced to work and people tricked to work in prostitution but there were no cases of forced migrant workers). For this reason, it represents an important step forward for the rights of the irregular migrant workers, which have been subject of labour exploitation. The Greek State has been accused of failing to prevent human trafficking of irregular migrant workers, constraint to continue threats, exploitation, violence and lack of decent conditions of life. For this reason, the Greek State will have to pay between 12 and 16 thousand euros for each of the 42 workers involved, the highest fine the Court of Strasbourg had never asked. This sentence could represent a first important step towards a deeper protection of the irregular migrants workers not only in Greece, but in the whole Europe as well. The Greek government could bring the sentence in front of the Great Chamber in the next three months: if it does not do it, it is because the Manolada episode happened under the previous Conservative Party. Chowdury and the other guys are smiling. He has 28 gunshots in his body, others have a little less, but none of them is a victim, at least not any more: In front of me I can only see men aware of their own rights, which have finally been recognised.
0 Comments
|
Archives
June 2022
Categories |