Woman wins sex discrimination case against prison

  • 2002-02-21
  • Timothy Jacobs
RIGA - An appeals court here ruled that Riga Central Prison had violated a Riga woman's civil rights by denying her a job based on her sex but denied her claim of 600 lats ($940) in compensation.

The court ruled that the prison's refusal to hire Inga Muhina in July 2000 because she was a woman violated Latvia's labor codes, which forbid discrimination based on race and sex except in specific cases.

Because the position of "prison guard" was not one of the jobs explicitly noted as being suitable only for men to hold, Muhina felt that her civil rights had been violated.

"The ruling is absolutely correct," said Vitolds Zahars, director general of the Latvian Prison Administration. "The (Riga Central) prison staff made a mistake," said Zahars, referring to the staff's decision to cite Muhina's sex as the reason that she was not hired.

According to Zahars, about 35 percent of the employees in Latvia's prison system are women, although most of them are administrators, not guards.

"In general, we don't hire women as prison guards in prisons where the inmates are all men.," he said.

Prison regulations forbid guards of the opposite sex from conducting searches of inmates. Zahars said Muhina wouldn't have been able to carry out some of the functions that would have been required of her as a guard in the all-male prison.

"We only hire women as guards in all-male prisons in extreme cases where we can't find a man to do the job," Zahars said.

Muhina was not available for comment.

According to Riga Central Prison deputy chief Valdis Bruners, the reason that the prison cited Muhina's sex as the reason that she was not hired was because there were no administrative jobs open at the prison then; only guard positions that a male guard could fill.

Muhina first learned of the job opening in a newspaper advertisement in July 2000 and applied for the position. The following month, she was told that she did not get the job because she is female. Muhina later received a written confirmation re-affirming the decision not to hire her on the basis of her sex.

In January 2001 Muhina filed a complaint over the prison's refusal to hire her with the bureau of the general inspector, a branch of the Justice Ministry, but could not get it to overturn the decision.

Muhina sought counsel at the Center of Legal Aid and Practice, a program that is part of Latvia University's School of Law, which offers free legal aid from law students in labor law and housing law cases.

Liga Fjodorova, Muhina's legal representative from the center, was unavailable for comment, but a representative from the program believes that Muhina will appeal the decision to a higher court to get the 600 lats compensation.

"If she still wants to work at a prison, I'd be happy to invite her to my office and to speak with her about her qualifications," said Zahars.

The judge's written explanation for the decision will not be available for another two weeks.