Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2014)
NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR COMBATING DISCRIMINATION – COURT OF JUSTICE OF EUROPEAN UNION – BUCHAREST COURT OF APPEAL. CAUSE C-81/12
Abstract
The scope of this investigation consists in closing the jurisdictional circle initiated in 2010 and analysing the national and European procedural, jurisdictional-administrative issues, in case of notifying some institutions related to certain discriminatory assertions. The investigation relies on assertions made during a radio show. On 12 October 2011 the Bucharest Court of Appeal ruled the notification of the Court of Justice of European Union related to preliminary questions formulated and ordered the suspension of the case until the settlement of the procedure. In 2013, the Bucharest Court of Appeal, although initially accepting the preliminary application of ACCEPT, submitting the case to the Court of Justice of European Union in order to determine the manner of interpretation of communitarian legislation related to the claims of plaintiff, eventually all arguments of CNCD have been accepted that is the warning is an effective, reasonable, dissuasive and (contextual) proportional sanction, and such declaration cannot be understood as a discrimination in the labour field. De facto, the assertions of CNCD were in full agreement with the resolution of the Court of Justice of European Union, that is the communitarian legislation does not exclude the application of some sanctions without pecuniary character, such as the sanction with warning, since this kind of sanction does not have only a symbolic character, being a contraventional legal sanction, mainly when associated a relevant degree of advertising (such in the case), and the addressee is addressed, with arguments, directly and expressly the recommendation of meeting the non-discrimination principle, under the implicit effect of a more drastic sanction in case of relapse (discrimination in the same field).
