EOC: Employment tops complaints

About 80 per cent of complaints made to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) were made in the area of employment, says Chairman Lynette Seebaran Suite.

Suite gave the statistic during the Law Association (LATT) and EOC’s panel programme held at the LATT offices on Frederick St, Port of Spain on Tuesday.

The two bodies gathered for a panel discussion to commemorate World Human Rights Day observed that day.

Describing the numbers as “overwhelming,” Seebaran-Suite added that other areas formed the basis of complaints to the EOC included the provision of accomodation, goods and services. She added, 66 per cent of the complaints were against public-sector agencies.

Suite said areas in the public sector where complaints are made included statutory bodies, the protective services and ministries.

She noted 34 per cent of complaints were against private companies.

Giving a possible explanation for the difference in numbers, she said, “This may very well be because of the dangers that a person always places themselves in when they make a complaint against an employer. They fear victimisation and being fired.”

She said the EOC was mandated to investigate every claim, “even if it is only to come to the conclusion that the person does not come within an area (for redress).”

She said that outcome sometimes causes a lot of grief for some complainants and the Commission resorts to directing them to the industrial court, the civil courts, or another agency.

“That is because we cannot entertain the complaint because we don’t have the jurisdiction,” Seebaran-Suite said.

She also said the EOC could compel the respondents to each case to provide information, and if they did not, the EOC could prosecute them in the magistrate’s court. The fine can be up to $5,000 a day for each day the information was not provided.

“People tend to receive letters from the EOC and throw it in the garbage, and assume that nothing will happen if they do not provide the information.”

She said investigation, and conciliation processes were the methods the EOC used to address complaints, but if the process did not result in conciliation, the EOC had to refer the report to a tribunal with the consent of the complainant.

Feature speaker, former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj said his own legal issues might have opened the door for changes in being awarded remedies for discrimination in the courts.

He recounted his own legal battles, where he was arrested and imprisoned at the behest of a judge who found him to be in contempt of court. In his own quest for redress against the judge he was first told that because it was a judge who contravened his rights the constitution did not provide any redress.

“In those days when you succeeded in a constitutional motion as it was called, it was thought that your only redress was to get a declaration... I think the state in all its arms has a duty to see that there are effective remedies for the contravention of human rights,” Maharaj said.