Volunteer civil society members of Czech Govt Roma Council: Proposed welfare amendment violates confirmed rights
The Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic (Photo: Czech Tv)
An amendment to the law on help to all those in material distress currently awaiting a 2nd looking at in the Czech reduced household does not regard the fundamental rules and rights that such welfare gains are intended to assure, according to some of the volunteer civil society associates of the Czech Govt Council on Romani Minority Affairs. Romani community members and other individuals on the Council point out that through the final six many years, seven this kind of amendments to the legislation on support to those in materials distress have been submitted to the legislature for consideration.
“… all the expenditures that contain these kinds of sanctions have been based mostly on the conviction that this regulation can be bent to the will of these distributing these types of amendments,” reads the declaration by the volunteer civil modern society users of the Roma Council, who consider this regulation cannot under any situation be repurposed as an instrument for “re-educating” gain recipients. These Council associates feel that if this amendment were being to be adopted, it would after again make the condition even worse.
The declaration is signed by 9 volunteer civil society users of the Council. Information server Romea.cz is publishing it here in complete translation.
Declaration by volunteer civil culture members of the Czech Government Council on Romani Minority Affairs
A bill authored by Czech MPs Jan Bauer, Petr Fiala, Zbyněk Stanjura, Jana Černochová and others to promulgate an amendment to Act No. 111/2006, Coll., on assist to these in material distress, as very well as several other legal guidelines, has been scheduled for a next reading through in the reduce household.
The modification is aimed at the supplemental housing advantage and the allowance for subsistence and, if an individual has been fined for committing a misdemeanor and has still to pay out the good, proposes that the amount of the wonderful be deducted from these advantages, precisely for the misdemeanors of not enrolling a child in compulsory training, neglecting the care of a child by allowing the youngster to skip a lot more than 100 hrs of compulsory college attendance during a person semester without the need of a valid justification, or committing misdemeanors towards public get, civil coexistence and home.
It is certainly not feasible to think the purpose of a blind defender of individuals who commit this kind of misdemeanors, but the amendment to the law that is presently being talked about can not be thought of the best authorized solution, specifically considering the fact that it does not regard the elementary rules and rights this sort of advantages are meant to uphold.
As can be witnessed from the discussion on this law, throughout the last 6 a long time this kind of amendments to the regulation on aid to all those in materials distress have been submitted 7 periods.
“… we guidance this invoice remaining study a 2nd time simply because absolutely none of us in this article would like condition social support added benefits to be abused …” These words and phrases pronounced during that discussion particularly categorical what the motivations of some MPs are for continually submitting more recent and more recent amendments to the law on help to these in content distress.
Let’s go away aside the actuality that, despite regularly distributing amendments to this legislation, some MPs keep on to confuse the law on point out social assist with the law on aid to people in substance distress. It is, nevertheless, unachievable to ignore the reality that all the expenditures that include these sanctions have been based mostly on the conviction that this law can be bent to the will of all those publishing these types of amendments.
It is also not attainable to defend this intention with reference to the state’s incapacity to satisfy Federal government steps that have presently been accepted, as confirmed by these terms of a Communist Party for Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) MP: “The KSČM supports the passage in the very first looking through of this modification from MP Bauer and his colleagues who have submitted it relating to the regulation on help to people in material distress. I say this due to the fact it is also the way we have preferred to answer to what we claimed in the Committee on Social Coverage, exactly where 6 ministries, except the Ministry for Regional Improvement, have so much extra or considerably less performed almost nothing to initiate the ’15 Measures to Fight Poverty’. You may well have experienced, or you do have, data from the final tripartite session that 98 % of these measures were termed unfulfilled, unfulfilled, unfulfilled.”
What is much more, the monthly bill has been submitted with the recognition that it may possibly clash with a suitable of which the submitters are most most likely cognizant, especially considering the fact that a single, throughout the “protection” of the amendment, commented in the adhering to words: “I will try to shorten it, possibly it can be worthy of it – threat yields gain, but at times reduction.”
An amendment to a law, however, can not possibly be submitted as a “threat” by way of which I, as a lawmaker, grimly just take a stand against the indicating and targets of a authorized norm.
Let’s recall that the law on support to those people in content distress have to be comprehended as immediately applying Posting 26, paragraph 3 and Write-up 30, paragraph 2 of the Charter of Essential Rights and Freedoms, i.e., the proper to take pleasure in sufficient material protection throughout unemployment. In other text, under no conditions is this laws an instrument for the “re-training” of these beneficiaries, which is what individuals publishing it declare to want to achieve.
What is even much more unpleasant is the point that some MPs are assuming the position of defending all those whom they connect with “respectable people” and are consistently intensifying hatred in society against those people who attract welfare rewards. Finally, it is not doable to contemplate these alleged fears about the deteriorating conduct of the impoverished, or even the alleged fears about welfare abuse, to be reputable aims of the modification submitted.
When it will come to abusing welfare, all those publishing this amendment and its quiet defenders seem, with a significant dose of conceitedness, to be excluding the option for welfare disbursals to be legally audited. Currently there are lawful strategies in area by now to prosecute this kind of actions and strictly manage welfare abuse. The question of abuse, thus, simply cannot be perceived as implying the non-existence of lawful techniques to addressing it.
There do not exist any sanctions for people who incite the abuse of rewards, having said that. Those people publishing this modification are making an attempt to include sanctions from other norms into this one particular legislation in certain, the regulation on support for individuals in material distress, but the previously-adopted laws definitely is not intended to provide the goal of transforming these types of benefits into a supply of earnings for the municipalities that are empowered to adjudicate misdemeanors and levy fines, nor is upholding the correct to material protection intended to direct to disproportionate limitations on the ideal to get pleasure from fundamental living circumstances (for motives other than individuals stipulated by law). A concrete option for reaching the payment of fines levied towards these who have committed misdemeanors undoubtedly are not able to deviate from the basic framework of the Structure, but this invoice amending the legislation on assist to people in content distress does just that, and if it is adopted it will make the problem worse, as evidenced by all of the prior proposals for amendments to this distinct law.
Jan Husák

Alena Drbohlavová Gronzíková

Gwendolyn Albert

Čeněk Růžička

Zdeněk Guži

Tomáš Ščuka

Vladimír Čermák

Alica Sigmund Heráková

Martin Kaleja
