August the 8th, 2021 - While vaccination isn't mandatory, many limits are being gradually placed on those who aren't vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Could Croatian employees who aren't vaccinated ever face being ''let go'' by their employers? Croatian lawyer Antonio Volarevic weighed in on this question.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, due to the continued spread of the novel coronavirus and sometimes poor vaccination coverage, many countries are imposing restrictions on the unvaccinated. Some unvaccinated people are even being fired from their places of work. Namely, in Italy, you absolutely can't enter theatres, museums, gyms, or the insides of cafes and restaurants without being able to show a green pass proving you're vaccinated. According to the US CNN, three unvaccinated employees were fired.
Lawyer Antonio Volarevic revealed for Dnevnik whether there are legal grounds for such moves here in Croatia.
"In Croatia, there's really no legal basis for such repression. There is no law or regulation that would restrict the freedom of movement of citizens in that sense,'' he said.
For example, on CNN, three unvaccinated people were fired. Here in this country, according to lawyer Antonio Volarevic, that is simply not allowed, but in America "it obviously is".
America, he explains, has a strikingly different legal system - a system of precedent. In this country, something must actually be prescribed in advance in order to be sanctioned.
"I say that it's inadmissible because an employer, in order to want to terminate an employment contract for something, must therefore have some justification, a legally valid basis. The fact that the worker wasn't vaccinated cannot be the basis for their dismissal,'' he explained.
If the employer fired an unvaccinated person because they're unvaccinated, then they wouldn't be punished because that isn't prescribed by law. That said, the worker can go to court and then the court can decide whether the dismissal was justified or not. In that case, the employer must return the worker to work and pay them the salaries he would have received if they'd stayed at work, as well as compensation for damages,'' lawyer Antonio Volarevic said.
The employer has no right to request an employee's vaccination information, nor do they have any right to keep records of who has been vaccinated and hasn't been vaccinated,” he stated.
"All of this, creating an atmosphere of fear where people should be afraid they could lose their jobs, that they'll end up getting fired if they aren't vaccinated - it's completely illegal,'' lawyer Antonio Volarevic concluded.
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