- RFERL Watch
- Apr 9, 2023
- 10 min read
The beginning of June 2020 found me in a new company and at a new workplace. Knowing that the mills of God were indeed grinding, I accepted with satisfaction the news in those days that my former bosses, #RC("Remotely Controlled") and #JS("Joints Smoker"), had hurriedly left our once common "institution". Both lawsuits and my first criminal complaint were filed, so as an inexperienced first-time mother, I waited with a slight tremor in my lower abdomen to see what the next few days would bring.
I believed in the self-cleaning mechanism of this famous company and naively overestimated its efforts to really do so. I thought the cleaning products and internal procedures had already been released and the general cleaning was finally about to happen. It was to be expected "by default" that during this event there would also be washing of dirty laundry, after all this also belongs to the achievement of every clean household. It is only a technological question, where and how effectively it is washed.
When the legal department of Radio ГA / ГA headed by #LA("Leklá Andělka") learned from the court that we are seriously continue in our activities, they contacted their law firm paid by American taxpayers #UTP("US Tax payer"), specifically #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko"), to negotiate a reasonable and politically correct agreement with my sister. At that time, the sister took on my free legal representation in the role of "power of attorney" and that's how we started negotiations. As the first activity of the "sued party", as Radio ГA / ГA was called from that day between us internally, it was the effort of the lawyer #MV ("Mgr. Prasátko") to explain to us politically that if we want to sue them at all costs, which is not really recommended by them, so let's consider merging our two lawsuits into one. They say it's about the same thing anyway, so they don't understand why we want to pay the prescribed court fee of one thousand "CZK" for each of them.
At that time, we still did not fully understand their "good-hearted advice" and its "crystal clear" background, and so their effort to save our legal expenses in this imaginary first round was failed.
The military science specialists would say that it was a little exploration by combat on their part. In cleaning terminology, this is called - remove the obstacles and then just clean to the finish.
Then nothing happened for a while, until suddenly our communication "silence" was interrupted by the judge with a request to specify the "petition" in both filed lawsuits. I confess that I heard this word for the first time when I was almost sixty years old, and to be honest, at first I thought that this good lady, in this difficult situation for me, was primarily interested in my stomach and taste buds. After explaining this legal expression by "smarter one from our team", we set about clarifying "what we are really getting at with these lawsuits" and what the "sued party" cannot and cannot find in them there.
So let's go briefly to those unfortunate lawsuits.
1. Claim one
In the first one dated 25/03/2020, concerning the claim for the invalidity of my resignation pursuant to § 72 of the Labor Code, I tried to describe what bothered me about it from the beginning on more than 30 pages plus the same number of appendices. It was mainly about disregarding the evidence presented by me, about the impossibility to comment on any of the accusations (described here), about the violation of the Labor Code in relation to the termination of the employment relationship by dismissal according to §52 letter g.), especially in connection with the absence of a job description (I performed the function of an O365 administrator for 5 years without a job description and without training), about the failure to discuss the termination with the trade unions according to §61, paragraph 1 of the Labor Code, about formal deficiencies in the signed employment contract and its of the amendment from 2018 and finally the most importantly - about the attempt to blame the professional and managerial impotence of #RC ("Remotely Controlled") on me.
If at any time in the future you would like to engage in similar foolishness, even after reading this blog of mine, it is important not to forget to state that according to §69 paragraph 1, you insist that this "institution" continues to employ you, without undue delay. This is also linked to regular reminders sent every month with the obligation to pay you the missed average salary, which they will understandably make fun of. Nevertheless, please do not forget about this procedure, because then it could happen to you that, God forbid, after you win the dispute, the defendant will eventually show you a "faker".
Then after more than two years of unsuccessful washing and cleaning, it can end up like this.
The law is one thing, but let's be realistic. You can imagine that after winning the case, Radio ГA / ГA and its management will accept you back according to the well-known Slavic "what we are, we are what we are", especially since you allowed yourself to be the last item in their food chain who is dragging them around the courts?
Therefore, this procedure is important only from the point of view of possible financial satisfaction and subsequent court proceedings.
2. Claim two
In this second one, dated 20.3.2020, concerning the lawsuit according to § 10 par. 1 of Act No. 198/2009 Coll., on equal treatment and on legal means of protection against discrimination and the amendment of certain laws (anti-discrimination law), I have tried to describe on more than 20 pages plus appendices what I have noticed about the employer's behaviour recently in bothered this area. This was mainly about not respecting my recommendations in the area of computer security and infrastructure, about the impossibility of getting an education in this area or in others, unlike others, about age discrimination during career progression, about the obligation to perform a job without training and without defining job duties , about hidden bossing, about open "cyberstalking", about assigning meaningless tasks and about selective violations of the labor code exclusively against my person (blocking access to my personnel folders, disregarding exit procedures after the end of the working period, non-standard delivery of notices), about unequal treatment against me when solving problems - just doing everything possible to make me "disappear".
Perhaps an insignificant, but as we later found out, an important detail of these lawsuits filed by us, it was their address.
Both lawsuits were sent in writing form to the court of local jurisdiction and the "defendant" was identified in both lawsuits exactly according to its name in the valid commercial register, i.e. the American address plus its Czech address as organisational folder.
Another important detail, which we were not yet aware of at the time, it is the method of assigning a specific court panel to individual lawsuits.
At the court of local jurisdiction and one can say globally in the Czech Republic (in contrast to "less democratic countries", such as Slovakia), the judge (meaning the court panel) is assigned based on the work schedule. It is a publicly available document, which is sometimes "unfortunately" hidden on the official websites of the courts, in which all court panels and their composition are listed with the names of the judges, their identification mark (for example, "16C") and their specialisation (usually In percentage).
While in other "less democratic" countries judges are assigned based on a generated allocation via special software, which ensures that a particular judge does not get a pre-selected case and thus ensures a kind of elementary justice based on mathematical chance, here it isn't in most cases. Thus, it can happen that even lawsuits that were delivered to the court at different times and concerning a specific company they are always dealt with by the same and previously known court panel.
A bit like this event, well known in our "pools and groves" as "Karlovarská losovačka", one might say.
On this occasion, I recall the prophetic statement of #MV ("Dr. Vepřek") about the female judge who is allegedly already "hot and prepared on us" and that she will sweep us properly.
But what about that?
How to systematically ensure that both lawsuits will land on the table and in the right hands of well known judge? How to make it happen as it has happened many times before? And would it be possible to do it ideally so that it could become a precedent for other cases in the future?
Already at that time, another case of an unfortunate person from Radio ГA / ГA was heading to her righteous hands, potentially with the same lawsuits.
Um. Labor law? She's had 100% of that on her circuit for years, there won't be a problem with that. But what about discrimination? Oh yeah, here it's 0% and with a bit of exaggeration she could say it's very similar to her responsibility, but you know. Just a precarious situation ala "where there is nothing, even death does not take." So how to arrange it?
And so the couple of righteous come up with an idea. Either they will convince us that it will be combined into one lawsuit "for the invalidity of the notice" and thus it will be classically "swept out", or the lawsuit "against discrimination" will be modified into something that will also end up being "swept out" as a result in the same judge!
We don't yet know who was the father of this brilliant idea, but the result was a real masterpiece.
Therefore, our lawsuit against discrimination was taken and the part, where information about the organisational component of Radio ГA / ГA address as the "sued party" was originally specified, i.e. the part of its Prague's address, finally it was deleted. With the stroke of a pen it became "pure" American company, falling under the "foreign" category of lawsuits, and it became the sued party, where, thanks to its specialisation from the mentioned work schedule, it can again be judged fairly and without doubts by the same well-known judge senate.
So it was swept and preliminarily cleaned. So far, it's just dry and somewhere has been swept under the carpet. After all, there was still time for general cleaning.
And so we were assigned our two court case numbers to the same judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá"), when the system decided it "crystal clear" and our first the date of the meeting, set for June 4, 2020, was fast approaching.
On May 8, 2020, we therefore specified the petition against discrimination, which we were invited to do by the court a few days before. In essence, we demanded an end of their behaviour, an understanding of my feelings and their apology. We considered that, based on the evidence supplied, for Radio ГA / ГA nothing incontrovertible (see imprint below).
Above all, let they definitely start having seriously talking with us!
This meeting, scheduled for the "magic date" of 6/4/2020 (see #RC("Remotely Controlled") "remotely controlled" "affidavit" date), or the day we received a response to the inquiry about the status of the investigation from "police"), was marked by the judge as an informative hearing and relating only to the discrimination claim.
Only later we noticed that even this official "invitation" document contained the address of the defendant party was modified by the court.
Those of you who have ever had the misfortune to participate in the discussion of some of your own or someone else's injustice in The Palace of Justice on Mičánky will surely agree with me that it works with the impression of a justice factory in the shrivelled departure hall of Wilsoňák train station. On scrolling screens and in real time, "who, against whom and where" runs all the day here, and somewhere between the arrivals and departures from somewhere to somewhere, my name will soon appear. Where will it direct me?
It's a shame that this building has already carried the label of overpriced construction and errors in the preparation of projects. However, this pride of the judiciary allegedly contains 98 courtrooms, 38 rooms for secret interrogations, 30 detention cells, a large auction hall, information offices, filing rooms, a study room for viewing files, a specialist library or perhaps a canteen for employees. The entire area is connected by underground corridors, and the traffic inside the building is divided into two parts, so that judges and prosecutors can come into contact with the public, and once with us, basically only in the courtroom.
We were greeted by a very pleasant and naturally respectful judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá") in her dressing gown and after an initial informal two-way chat about the topic of COVID, traffic on the highway between Slovakia and the Czech Republic and the weather, we finally moved to the merits of the matter. We were surprised that we did not see the counterpart here, which we were looking forward to very much.
After the initial introduction and after presenting the credentials, she began to mentally anoint us with "pet" and gently "shuffle" (expressions from the basic military service, author's note). That if it is clear to us that this dispute can last for years, if we realize how we will bleed financially, especially if we lead it through two lawsuits against Radio ГA / ГA?
After this argument, all the warning lights came on for us immediately, and they were not turned off even by her assurance that, as a former Czechoslovak, she does not mind our once common Czech-Slovak language and we can easily "speak as our beaks have grown" and even without a mask .
It didn't work on us and we stubbornly persisted in matters of lawsuits.
Because, according to her, we still had some time left, the dear lady judge continued even outside the points of the summons in the discussion about the lawsuit about the invalidity of the statement. Since even here, according to her idea, the proposed goal of "it's better to honestly wrap it up and not get involved with them" was not achieved, she ended this fruitful "thrashing of empty straw" after 70 minutes.
We left this temple of justice with the belief that we would have to request access to both files as soon as possible and find out what additional dirt on me we could find there after they were cleaned.
So far we were only at the beginning of the journey, full of vigor and also full of the proverbial recklessness, which made us look forward to what our first meeting "with them" would bring us.
I don't know if it was a result of the general cleaning that followed, but no audio recording survives of this "very open" informative 70 minute interrogation was found in files. Regarding our request, we were informed by the court management in the person of #RV ("Dr. Veverička") that at that time there was no wiretapping installed in this courtroom. The fact that there are also other commonly used recording means (dictaphone, mobile device) and that this kind of recording is required and has priority over the written one, was rather kept from us. At our special request for the release of at least the written one, which we were missing during the check in the files, I finally took this unsigned simplified protocol after grinding my teeth by judge #JH ("Dr. Hustá").
Even the toner probably doesn't believe that this protocol was actually created on June 4, 2020, and after reading that text you must think of something about a hot needle and the godliness of the unsigned.
This request of ours set the stage for future problems and we became the imaginary axis for this Prague district cell of justice in the part where the back continues into its less flattering part.
It was prepared for a big washing and for dirty laundry, full of age stains, hastily patched holes and for musty smell, which was further offered as the cleanest, most luxurious and most fragrant bielizeň (linen) to sniff and peek for everyone.
But about how it smelled, sometime next time, if there is one...
