Prague, Oct 11 (CTK) – The Ombudsman’s Office will have the power to check whether employees from other EU countries are not discriminated against in the Czech Republic because of their foreign nationality, according to an amendment to the anti-discrimination law that the Senate approved today.
The Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Czech parliament, passed the amendment, based on a European directive, in September. President Milos Zeman is yet to sign it into law.
The amendment transposes an EU directive into the national legislation. It aims to guarantee equal opportunities on the labour market, including social and tax advantages, to EU foreigners and their family members.
The European Commission (EC) announced a week ago that it decided to sue the Czech Republic with the European Court of Justice because of its late transposition into the Czech legal order.
The EU member states were obliged to transpose the directive into their national legislations until May 2016.
The EC proposes a daily fine of some 900,000 crowns for the Czech Republic until it fully adopts the rules.
In reaction to it, the Office of Human Rights and Legislation Minister Jan Chvojka (Social Democrats, CSSD) said the Czech Republic would probably avoid the sanctions.
According to a government report, employers in the Czech Republic sometimes do not recognise previous professional practice or licences that an employee gained abroad or that put undue emphasis on the knowledge of the Czech language.
($1=21.960 crowns)
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