John Okoroukwu, a citizen of Russia and a Nigerian by nationality, appealed to the court, claiming that he was discriminated due to the color of his skin. Previously, no labor dispute, among other alleged violations, has ever been examined in Armenia, based on discrimination related to skin color and race.
“I came to Armenia in 2022, I emigrated from Russia, and when I was still there, I was looking for a job, came across the “QLESS AM” Company in Armenia. I successfully passed the interview and got a job offer, I immediately got a job in the Company. The Company seemed very promising to me at that moment, it was the American organization, which branch was operating in Yerevan,” Okoroukwu said.
According to him, most of the employees were, of course, Armenians, but there were also Russians in the Company. At first, there were no problems related to communication and adaptation, they were in good relations with each other at the workplace.
“Everything changed when the manager who hired me was fired and another person was hired instead. Namely, from approximately 4 months after that, we can say, the mass dismissals began. People were not ready that they would be fired. Everything began very abruptly,” he said.
According to John, there were agreements that he would continue to work, it was possible to change the position, the direction of work, but the Company did not keep them. Instead, he was told that he should be fired.
Our interlocutor mentioned that he agreed to it, but under the condition that everything should be done within the limits of the law. He was told that he would be fired by agreement, but in that case he would not be paid the amount he was supposed to receive.
In the interview with us, he also added: “I was offered a very small amount of money, I did not agree, after that incomprehensible things happened, even threats were made against me. They kept calling me, saying that I should work from the office, but we had an agreement that we could work from any other point. We work in IT, we have such an opportunity.
When I wrote to our work group, where we warned about working from home, the boss wrote me in a personal letter that I had to go to the office, otherwise it would be considered absent, and when other employees informed about working from home, they were allowed: that is, it only concerned to me.”
They tried to involve him in the conflict. The manager wrote personal letters and said that the latter does not describe well the work he does during the working day. John, in turn, noted that he did everything as before. He described the occurrence as discrimination, because other employees were not presented with similar demands.
According to John, after that he was called to the office, forced to sign an agreement and leave, otherwise the days not working from the office will be considered absences and he will be fired on that basis. He refused and went to court. The respondent did not accept the allegations made by John Okoroukwu.
He continued to insist that he is the only Negro in the Company and that such problems have arisen only with him.
His lawyer Gayane Demirchyan said that there had never been a similar case in judicial practice before. “Armenian courts have examined cases of discrimination, but the basis and standard of discrimination was between women and men, that is, discrimination based on gender, age, discrimination based on religious views, but we have not yet had occurrences of discrimination based on race or skin color. This is the first of its kind.”
According to the lawyer, the courts should assess that people in the same situation are treated differently without any objective grounds and reasonable explanations. From a legislative point of view, there are certain problems with regard to cases caused by discrimination, from the point of view of the distribution of the burden of proof.
“We know that burden-distribution in labor disputes is placed on employers, but employers must prove that they fired the employee on the right legal grounds, but as far as the mere fact of discrimination is concerned, that burden, in my opinion and in the opinion of many lawyers, should also be placed on the employer. However in this case we do not have that feature, and the Civil Procedure Code leaves that burden on the plaintiff, that is, the employee must prove it himself,” Demirchyan said.
She notes that although the Code provides for short deadlines for these disputes, practice shows that especially those cases where the fact of discrimination is cited, due to the scope of the burden of proof itself, become long-term, and it is not possible to examine them in 3 months.
There are also legislative gaps in terms of compensation, as the code does not provide for compensation for dismissal on the basis of discrimination and other cases occurring in labor relations.
At the moment, the case has entered the stage of trial in the court. “We have the correspondence with the Company, during which contacts took place as well, our client mentioned that he worked remotely, others also mentioned it, but the employment contract was resolved only with him. The employer also submitted a certificate that the only Negro employee in the office was our client, that is, there were no other Negro employees.
Demirchyan claims that it should be clearly stipulated that dismissal on this basis is prohibited. It is true there are few such cases in Armenia, but recently, when people of foreign nationalities and other skin colors are employed in our country, the problem may become more urgent, as a result of which court cases may increase.
According to the lawyer, in the mentioned case, the employer considered that one of the evidences presented by the plaintiff was falsified, filed a crime report, and initiated criminal proceedings.
In the criminal case, John Okoroukwu was questioned in the pre-trial body as a witness.
Iravaban.net has applied for clarification to the “QLESS AM”LLC, as well as to the representative of the Company, Felix Hovakimyan, but the latter stated that at this stage they will refrain from giving any comments on the mentioned case.
