Slovakia – agediscrimination.info
Prochazka Randl Kubr
www.prk.cz
Overview
Discrimination in employment is prohibited by the Constitution of the Slovak Republic (Act No. 460/1992 Coll.) as well as by the Labour Code (Act No. 311/2001 Coll.) and the Anti-Discrimination Act (Act No. 365/2004 Coll.), which implements the EU’s anti-discrimination legislation. During the recruitment process, employers are obliged to observe the provisions in the Act on Employment Services (Act No. 5/2004 Coll.).
The general principles governing discrimination also apply to age discrimination – Slovak legal rules do not provide an exact wording or examples of the types of age discrimination. Therefore, direct or indirect discrimination, as well as victimisation or harassment based on age are considered to be age discrimination.
Age discrimination can be justified but only under the circumstances specified in the Anti-Discrimination Act. This Act allows employers a different treatment of age grounds (i.e. discrimination based on age), but only if there is an objective reason following a legitimate aim. This different treatment for age discrimination must be proportional and necessary to reach the aim.
According to the Anti-Discrimination Act, setting the following conditions is not considered as discrimination:
- a minimum or maximum age limit as a condition for access to employment,
- special conditions for access to employment or vocational training and special conditions for work performance, including remuneration and dismissal, if it concerns persons of a certain age category and if the aim of these special conditions is to support the incorporation of such persons in the workforce or their protection,
- minimum age conditions, professional experience or a specified number of years worked for access to employment or to certain advantages in employment.
Who’s covered?
According to the Anti-Discrimination Act, age discrimination is prohibited in labour-law and similar relationships, as well as in relationships pertaining to these relationships.
Based on the foregoing, we believe that the ban on discrimination also applies to the self-employed, agency workers and other persons in similar situations. Unfortunately, there is no case law available which would specify in more detail these categories of persons to which the protection would apply.
Furthermore, prohibition of age discrimination is not connected with any specific age limit (i.e. employees over 40 years, as is the case in some countries, and it covers both old and young persons.
On the other hand, there are some categories of state employees who are excluded from legal protection against age discrimination. According to special acts governing the performance of a state service, the following retirement ages apply (the attainment of such age is connected with termination of the state-employment relationship):
- armed forces members (55 years);
- customs officers (55 years);
- police (55 years);
- judges (65 years);
- public prosecutors (65 years);
- university teachers (65 years);
- state service employees (65 years);
- fire and rescue brigade members (no exact age is specified, their state-employment terminates when they reach the age entitling them to draw pension benefits).
What enforcement/remedies exist?
There are no criminal sanctions when an individual or company breaches the rules on prohibition of age discrimination.
In case a person believes his/her rights, interests protected by law or freedoms were affected when the principle of non-discrimination was not followed, he/she may sue the employer in court and demand: (i) to cease such activity, (ii) to repair the unlawful situation or (iii) to provide adequate non-monetary satisfaction (e.g. an apology). In case adequate satisfaction is not deemed sufficient (namely if the person’s dignity or reputation is substantially harmed), the harmed person may claim monetary compensation.
Nowadays the law does not set a maximum limit for monetary compensation, as it used to in the case of pre-contractual relations (if an employer breached the principle of equal treatment in the course of recruitment, compensation was limited to two-times the average monthly salary the employee would have received if he/she had been hired. When calculating the compensation, the court takes into consideration the consequences of the age discrimination. Claims are bought in general courts – there are no special courts dealing with (age) discrimination in the Slovak Republic.
How common are claims?
Claims concerning discrimination in employment matters are quite rare in the Slovak Republic. Moreover, the number of disputes is decreasing, as employees fear losing their jobs.
As the principle of non-discrimination is quite new, there is no standard case law pertaining to discrimination law in the Slovak Republic at all, including case law on age discrimination. From the information available and after consultation with several NGOs, we have not found any judicial decisions concerning age discrimination in employment matters.
What claims are most common and what are trickiest issues for employers?
We do not expect that blue collar employees will sue their employer for age discrimination. Usually white collar employees in executive functions, who have more legal information, know their rights better and have a better access to legal advisory might potentially initiate a proceeding before the court.
It is not excluded that proceedings concerning the recruitment process at the employer will occur, especially if the employer has advertised discriminatory conditions for job seekers.
Are there any specific exceptions in your laws?
Minimum wage is lower for young employees under 18; these employees have more protections than older employees, as they may not perform some hard labour and they may not enter into some special agreements (e.g. indemnity agreement).
There are currently different retirement ages for men (62 years) and women (55 years). The retirement ages for men and women will be unified by 2014.
Furthermore, employees have different rights in respect of paid holiday and notice period depending on their length of service.
Certain categories of employees (state employees) are governed by special laws.
Retirement ages
There is no retirement age – an employer may not force an employee to retire when he/she reaches a specific age (e.g. an official age enabling employees to draw pension benefits, please see above). Exceptions to this for special categories of state employees are stipulated in special acts (please see retirement ages mentioned above).
In the Slovak Republic retired employees who draw a pension may also conclude an employment relationship or be self-employed. Moreover, both employees drawing a pension and their employers contribute less to the Social Security insurance than do other employees.
Nevertheless, an employer may dismiss an (old) employee if his/her performance is worse than the performance of other (younger) employees; such dismissal must be objectively justified.
Interesting cases
As already mentioned above, there are no cases concerning age discrimination publicly available in the Slovak Republic.