Protection of jobseekers participating in job announcements and advertisements, and the right to an effective remedy in the general employment regime

• Main Author: Kovačević Ljubinka
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Faculty of Law, Niš 2020-01-01
• Series: Zbornik Radova Pravnog Fakulteta u Nišu
• Subjects: right to work; freedom of work; entering into employment relationship; job advertisements; right to an effective remedy; two-instance protection of labour rights; judicial protection of labour rights
• Online Access: https://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0350-8501/2020/0350-85012089263K.pdf

Public job announcements and advertisements are instruments which provide for exercising the constitutional principle that all available jobs must be accessible to everyone under equal conditions. The application of this principle is most closely connected with the effective exercise of freedom of work and the right to work. For this reason, recruitment procedure cannot be beyond the scope of control which enables immediate elimination of irregularities in this procedure. In that context, this article discusses the issue of the right of participants in public announcements or job advertisements to an effective legal remedy, not only via the right to judicial and extrajudicial remedies, but also via the right to object or appeal, as the means to achieve internal protection of rights. In the Republic of Serbia, this issue is particularly delicate because the Labour Act does not recognize the two-instance internal procedure, while judicial protection of the rights of jobseekers has not been directly regulated, with the exception of protection against discrimination, and protection of workers whose employment was previously terminated due to redundancy, resulting in their employment priority when hiring for the same jobs. This legal solution is accompanied by a number of open questions, especially as the participants in public announcements and job advertisements procedures in special employment regimes enjoy the two instance internal protection in the same situation, which calls into question the effective application of the principle of equality before the law. Therefore, the article formulates proposals de lege ferenda to create conditions for effective exercise of the right to work, freedom of work, and protection against discrimination in a procedure in which a worker seeks to acquire a status that will provide him with the means of subsistence as well as an opportunity to develop his personality through work.