Commissioner for the Protection of Equality Brankica Janković participates in the Fifth Regional Conference of Equality Bodies of Southeast Europe in Ljubljana, with representatives of Croatia, BA, Northern Macedonia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Albania, OSCE, as well as the Director of the European Network of Equality Bodies (EQUINET). The main topics discussed are vaccination, different treatments of vaccinated and unvaccinated, as well as the introduction of covid passes.
Commissioner Janković said that this is a new and sensitive issue for all countries, as well as for all European equality institutions, to which an adequate answer needs to be found, which is especially challenging when there is still no position or decision of the European Court of Human Rights, Equinet or ECRI. She pointed out that the state has the right to adopt measures to protect the health of the population. Some measures involve different treatment, provided that if they are proportionate to the legitimate aim and necessary, they do not constitute discrimination. Protecting the health of the population is a legitimate goal and vaccination is the most important measure of protection.
Jankovic emphasized that in such circumstances it is necessary to do everything to protect public health, but that care must be taken that the measures adopted should be in accordance with the achieved standards of human rights protection, including protection against discrimination.
At the conference there was also talk about covid the passes, which have been introduced in some European countries, with the assessment that they should be in the service of protecting the health of citizens, increasing the number of those who will decide to be vaccinated, but not for the purpose of punishment.
Representatives of regional bodies for equality in Southeast Europe were received before the conference by the President of Slovenia, Borut Pahor, who supported the work of regional bodies. By the way, this regional cooperation started in 2016 on the initiative of the Republic of Serbia – the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality.
