for socialization and employment of people with disabilities are directly related to the quality of the educational opportunities for them. Although the case was not formally for educational discrimination against SPEF students but for labour discrimination against their teachers, the CPD acknowledged the link between the two and solved the second issue in the light of the first – a sound, rights protecting approach.
distribution of the burden of proof. The CPD is more and more active in requiring the defendants to provide convincing proof of their actions and to prove legal, non-discriminating reasons behind them. The CPD often explicitly announces that defendants’ explanations are unfit and refuses to accept them, even when supported by some evidence, if their statements are inconsistent or unjustified by life and the evidence cannot be fully trusted.
In a series of cases the CPD explicitly recognizes that primary and secondary legislation is discriminatory. In some cases it does not hesitate to use its powers to instruct the institutions responsible about the needed legislative amendments.
The CPD is developing a strong practice against racist hate speech. It rules with strong motives against the trend of journalists indicating the Roma origin of alleged criminals. Invoking the international standards, the CPD defines this as hate speech and qualifies it as harassment in violation of the PADA. The commission analyses media self-regulation in this respect and firmly reveals measures that are formalistic and declarative. The CPD’s consistent approach is that freedom of expression is restricted by the constitutional imperative to respect human dignity, and the prohibition of harassment is a means of observing this imperative. The same approach is also applied with regard to rough political speech that lowers whole categories of citizens who are not public figures, on the basis of their political affiliation.
The CPD approach to assuming and officially collecting evidence is effective, pragmatic and flexible. It requires and obtains videos and Internet content and subjects them to review. In this, its practices are superior to those of the courts; the latter often have a rigid and scholastic attitude to such sources of information, which hinders the establishment of some categories of facts. The CPD is also liberal in constituting the parties in the proceedings. It identifies the interested parties officially, on the basis of their actual pertinence to the respective issues. The CPD issues on a regular basis instructions to the offenders to initiate specific measures to eliminate the discrimination or its consequences. It systematically orders termination of discriminatory practices and bans them for the future. For example, it instructs media to introduce self-control and discrimination prevention mechanisms and to periodically report the results to the commission. A novelty is that in 2008 the CPD publicly, through the media, ordered several discriminators to apologize for their actions and to publish the CPD decision establishing their responsibility. This is definitely a positive development towards pro-active and recovering sanctioning with a public education effect.
In line with international law, the CPD rules that racial segregation may exist even without forced separation, when the separation is a product of objective trends. This liberal interpretation is commendably devoid of following the letter of PADA, which provides a narrowing definition of racial segregation.
Deficiencies The CPD still allows serious internal contradictions in its practice. In some cases, it refuses to rule whether discrimination is present, only because the controversial treatment is included in secondary legislation, although in other cases it doesn’t hesitate to rule not only against secondary but also against primary
There is also a visible development in the commission practices with regard to the 31