The Problem of Discrimination in the Substitution of the Labor Relations by Civil Law

This article addresses the issue of discrimination in the substitution of the labor relations by civil law. The author comes with a conclusion that the Labor Code of the Russian Federation must be supplemented with a norm which would characterize the deliberate substitution of the labor relations by civil law as discrimination. This should entail the tightening of the employer’s responsibility for the violation of the labor rights of the citizens from administrative responsibility to criminal. The author analyzes the concept of discrimination in order to identify various possible interpretations of this term applicable in different situations. The author discusses the problem of distinguishing between direct and indirect discrimination in order to correlate the situation of labor relations with the theoretical concepts discussed. The author suggests attributing deliberate substitution of civil law relations by the employer to the labor discrimination, supplementing Article 15 of the Labor Code of the Russian Federation with the corresponding norm, which will toughen the responsibility for the violation of the citizen rights from administrative to criminal responsibility, effectively protecting the rights of the workers. In addition, legislative consolidation of this norm will allow, given that criminal cases of crimes under Article 136 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are considered criminal cases of public prosecution, to implement a mechanism to protect employees from discriminatory and repressive actions from the side of the employer and in the absence of an employee’s statement about violation of his rights.

трудовые отношения, гражданско-правовые отношения, дискриминация, уголовная ответственность