no. 07-00-471/2023-02 date: 8 April 2024.

OPINION      

The opinion was issued in the proceedings regarding the complaint of the Sports Association AA from …, as well as the members of this sports association, against the Sports Club BB from … and VV from …, alleging that the members of the Sports Association AA were discriminated against on the basis of membership in this sports organization. In the complaint and supplements to the complaint, it was stated, among other things, that on 23.8.2023, the Sports Association AA received an electronic letter from the Sports Club BB and VV in which this sports association was invited to submit an application for the participation of its competitors in the race within the “GG” manifestation. It was further stated that this manifestation included two races, that it was financed by the City, but that the AA Sports Association received an invitation to register its members only for the first race (competition), that the members of the AA Sports Association participated in the first race while they were not allowed to participate in the second race, noting that in the second only members of the sports club BB and another club participated in the race with the payment of a certain amount of money, as well as that the second race was much more massive than the first, and that VV told the parents of the children – members of the AA Sports Association that “there is no place for them in the second race”. In the statement and supplements to the statement, representatives of the Sports Club BB and VV stated, among other things, that by the decision of the Sports Club BB, as part of the planning of activities, it was decided that the organized sports event should have a competition and a demonstration part, due to the large number of children who are not professional competitors and practice this sport recreationally, that “it is entirely within the domain of the organizer to decide, organize and implement the activity in accordance with sports principles and fair play”, as well as that the decision was made by the competent body of the club in accordance with the statute and the law. It was further stated that the BB Sports Club, as the organizer of the event, held a competitive part and after it a demonstration race where all the children who did not want to participate in the competition part participated, and thus enabled those children to try out in the “so called competition part” of this sport, and that after the competition part, children who are beginners and recreational players, participated in a demonstration race organized by the club and that children from another club, which also has a larger number of recreational athletes, were invited. Also, that “neither could the children from the demonstration part participate in the competition race , nor children from the competition part in the demonstration part”, and that, in the competition part, i.e. the competition race, which was announced publicly on the club’s Facebook profile and through the media, “everyone who filed complaints participated”, that the “sports inspection” received two applications related to the organization of the disputed sports event, which it rejected because there were no elements to initiate proceedings, stating that the applicants “complained about the same article of law”. During the proceedings, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality analyzed all the evidence submitted by the parties to the proceedings (witness statements from both sides, lists of participants in both races, letters from the City Administration for Communal Activities and Inspections, etc.), and on that occasion, it was established that the evidence does not show that the actions of the person against whom the complaint was filed had a cause-and-effect relationship with membership in the AA Sports Association, but rather with the fact whether the competitors are actively or recreationally engaged in roller sports. The above is confirmed by the submitted lists of participants, from which it was established that the participants of the competitive race did not participate in the demonstration race and vice versa. Also, the Commissioner had in mind the correspondence of the City Administration for Communal Activities and Inspections, in which, among other things, it was stated that, on the occasion of this sports manifestation, two complaints were submitted, as well as that the sports inspector, after receiving the complaints, undertook certain preliminary actions in the form of collecting the necessary data important for the initiation of the proceedings, but then assessed that the conditions do not exist for the initiation of an inspection supervision proceedings based on the submitted complaints. The Commissioner issued the opinion that Sports Club BB and VV did not violate the provisions of the Law on Prohibition of Discrimination.

COMMISSIONER FOR THE PROTECTION OF EQUALITY
Brankica Janković