The Center for Civic Education (CGO) expressed concern over, as they stated, a renewed encroachment into the zone of systematic violation of the rights of citizens, and regarding the latest tightening of measures aimed at combating the corona virus.
"More precisely, this refers to part of the measures regarding movement in intercity traffic, movement after 21 p.m., as well as movement on weekends, when, in addition to the certificate, a decision on the establishment of an employment relationship or an employment contract must be given to the police officers for inspection. It also opens the question of the competence of the competent authorities who evaluated the legality of this measure, and given that the employment contract is an internal document that regulates the relationship between the employer and the employee", stated the coordinator of the Human Rights program at CGO Tamara Milaš.
She states that from the point of view of the protection of personal data, the obligation to disclose employment contracts for these purposes is disputed because they contain confidential information related to the contracting parties, and above all the employee.
"Those contracts may also contain other information that the employer considers may lead to the violation of trade secrets. Last year we had the opportunity to see that the adoption of certain measures hastily and without expert analysis led to the violation of human rights and it is not good to introduce such an approach again. In addition, it seems that when adopting these measures, the competent authorities did not take into account those persons who were engaged on other grounds, except for the employment contract. Therefore, it remains unclear how persons who are engaged on employment contract, i.e. contract on professional training, temporary or casual jobs or other similar contracts, even though they have the appropriate certificate from the employer".
Milaš states that it was not taken into account that, "we live in a country where there is not a small number of those who do not have an employment contract or are on the records of the Employment Service as unemployed".
"This raises the question: how can such persons achieve their existential needs in general, which are conditioned by moving from one municipality to another? Control could be ensured by importing the existing system instead of burdening citizens and violating their rights. For example, the possibility of verifying the credibility of decisions by inspecting the records of the Tax Administration or the Employment Office, and finally anonymization, i.e. concealment of certain data in contracts, could have been foreseen. 24 hours before, which would leave enough time to check and issue a certificate of unhindered movement".
Milaš stated that the CGO welcomes all measures that contribute to the suppression of a serious infectious disease, but also emphasizes that they must be objectively measured, based on arguments, equally valid for everyone and consistently applied.
"The government has not convincingly explained the different attitude towards entry from other countries, which casts a shadow of political influence in the adoption of these measures. We are also witnessing the inadmissible behavior of certain members of the government and other representatives of the authorities, who call on citizens to self-discipline and make clear the punishment of all those who violate the measures turn a deaf ear, and at the same time they themselves violate these measures and are unsanctioned. In this way, the constitutional principle of the rule of law is seriously threatened and the mandatory nature of the measures is nullified for all others. We call on the Government to adopt and publish measures in a timely manner in the future so that citizens and legal entities have enough time to make their adapt their behavior to binding norms. It is not a good practice so far to adopt measures in the middle of the working week with validity from the following day, even though the tightening of the measures is announced days before. Authorities must show sensitivity and be aware that citizens must, in accordance with the measures, often have to reorganize their life and work activities, and they must be given enough time for that".
The CGE suggests the Police Administration to continue with the practice of regularly publishing information on the effects of controlling the application of prescribed measures.
"How would they know what the police are doing to sanction those who are partly responsible for such a bad epidemiological situation in the country," concludes Milaš.
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