National delegations in the Council of the European Union will continue their discussion on 18 April on the directives aimed at strengthening the role of equality bodies at technical level (see EUROPE 13145/23). The ability of the bodies to participate in judicial proceedings and their investigative powers remain at the heart of the new changes put forward by the Swedish Presidency of the EU Council.
Legal proceedings
In particular, the text modifies the ability of equality bodies to act in court proceedings. Thus, the bodies will still be able to act “as a party in proceedings on the enforcement or judicial review of binding enforceable decisions“ as well as to “submit observations”.
However, while the European Commission allows them to “initiate or participate in proceedings on behalf or in support of one or several victims, in which case the consent of the victims is required”, Sweden is moving towards a different approach.
In fact, an equality body will be able to “initiate proceedings on behalf of, or participate in proceedings in support of, one or several victim” or initiate court proceedings in its own name, in particular “to address cases of discrimination selected by the equality body because of their abundance, their seriousness or their need for legal clarification”. Member States will therefore have a choice, but will have to grant “at least one” of these possibilities.
In addition, organisations will no longer be able to submit “oral or written statements” to the courts, but only “submissions” and only if national law allows it.
Investigative powers
The Swedish Presidency also proposes to open up the investigative powers of the equality bodies to “another competent body, in accordance with national law and practice”. However, such a competent body will, upon request, have to provide the equality body with “information from its investigation that is necessary to pursue a complaint of discrimination”.
Furthermore, while maintaining the withdrawal of preliminary assessments of complaints, it clarifies that, “on the basis of the evidence gathered”, equality bodies will have to present their own assessment of a complaint to the complainants - and not to the authors, as the Commission provides.
Resources and cooperation
Sweden is also revising other aspects of the proposed directives. It thus also insists on the necessary cooperation of the organisations with the social partners and the labour inspectorate.
It refines as well the definition of “sufficient resources”, specifying in particular that the “budget of equality bodies is not to suffer cuts that are significantly higher than the average cuts to other public entities”.
Finally, bodies will only have to publish summaries of the opinions and decisions they consider relevant, not all of them, and Member States will have a longer period (7 years instead of 5) to report to the Commission on the application of the Directives.
To read the amendments: https://aeur.eu/f/67j (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)