Recently, the court approved a settlement, with which a person who insulted and threatened prison guards was sentenced to one year and six months in prison. This case shows only part of the daily challenges that prison employees face. At the same time, it raises the question of the security and rights of these people, who often remain in the shadows, and their problems rarely reach public attention. One of the lawyers who has been defending the interests of prison employees for years and consulting the Union of Employees in Bulgaria is Nikola Popov. He has participated in a number of cases related to violence, violated labor rights and punishments against employees. Here is what lawyer Nikola Popov shared with FACT.
- Lawyer Popov, what made you become a defender of prison employees when things went to court. The work of guards is definitely interesting, difficult and offers many challenges. But what is your interest...
- My first meeting with guards and their problems was back in 2012, when several people, including the then chief guard and my childhood friend - Kiril Krastev, and the then union leader of the Sliven Prison - Tsvetan Mihaylov, sought me out for consultation regarding violated labor rights resulting from the incorrect recording of their working hours. After I became familiar with their case, it piqued my interest, as it concerned the untrodden path along which no case law had been established and in this sense it represented a challenge for me from a professional point of view. Then, over the years, there were the first “daring men“ who dared to state their well-founded claims for violated labor rights, and then they were followed by their colleagues from the Sliven prison, and then from other prisons in the country. The legal assistance I provided them was to protect their labor rights such as overtime pay, free food, work during public holidays, vacations, etc.
I simply decided, beyond the professional challenge, to make my contribution to a not-so-developed legal matter, which from a purely human point of view became interesting to me. My curiosity was also aroused by the fact that I was chosen as the defender of the socially weaker party in labor relations – that of the worker/employee.
- What are the most common cases you encounter when defending prison employees - do you have a case that has particularly touched you or changed your perspective on the work of guards and employees in places of deprivation of liberty?
- The most common cases in which I have been a lawyer for guards over the years are, as I said, their labor cases against their appointing authority - the General Directorate for the Execution of Sentences (GDIN). This concerns violations of labor legislation and social benefits. I have also provided defense in connection with disciplinary proceedings against prison guards, as well as in criminal cases brought by guards against prisoners in connection with threats, insults and bodily harm during work.
- What legal and institutional barriers do employees encounter in protecting their labor rights and safety at work?
- My point of view on the work of guards has not changed over the years. Before I encountered their cases, I - like every member of society, was not familiar with their daily problems and challenges. I take every case I have worked on to heart and strive to protect the interests of each of my clients as effectively and fully as possible.
- How often do employees tell you that they feel “forgotten“ by the state?
- From a legal point of view, the legal problems faced by employees in places of deprivation of liberty are due, in my opinion, to the creation of internal acts such as orders, instructions, which create legal norms that lead to violations of the rights of those working there. These rules of conduct are mandatory for the law enforcement bodies of the prison administrations, which leads to violations of labor rights and interests. This is on the one hand. On the other hand, they are not subject to independent appeal by employees to a court with the aim of their cancellation. For this reason, the only way to protect violated labor rights turns out to be civil law before civil courts, with the majority of cases leading to the award of monetary compensation for violated subjective rights and interests.
Another problem that I find is the lack of ability to distinguish between personal and professional relationships among some of the management staff in the directorate.
The managers perceive the filing of labor cases by employees as a personal attack against them, which to me means that they identify with the institution they represent in an unacceptable way.
Over the years, problems have also been created by the appointment to management positions in the Directorate of Corrections and the Ministry of Justice of people who have nothing to do with the system they are supposed to manage and do not know its specifics and problems.
Regarding the problems related to the security of the guards at their workplace, I believe that the institutions do not provide the necessary support. There is an implicit suggestion that physical or mental harassment at the workplace by prisoners has also occurred due to the lack of competence, adequacy and preparedness of the guards themselves. This is not the case. Thank God, prison workers have a very strong union organization that provides support to any employee whose security is threatened in any way, including by providing legal advice and protection in court.
- From your position as a lawyer defending the rights of employees in the prison system, how do you perceive the role of prison - as an institution with a real re-educational function, or rather as an environment in which both employees and prisoners are placed in conditions that make it almost unbearable?
- I would not say that places of deprivation of liberty are an intolerable environment in which prisoners and employees who guard them are forced to coexist. Incidents in which guards are victims of unlawful actions or words of prisoners do happen, but they are not everyday occurrences. I believe that the punishment of "deprivation of liberty" carried out in prisons has a truly real re-educational function in relation to most of those deprived of their liberty, which is why it seems exaggerated to me to claim that guards work in an intolerable environment.
However, I find it appropriate to increase the penalty for crimes that violate the physical or mental integrity of employees providing security in places of deprivation of liberty, by explicitly including employees from the supervisory and security staff of places of deprivation of liberty to those other employees (police officers, customs administration employees, magistrates, etc.), for whom the legislator has provided for more severe punishments through qualified criminal squads.
I believe that this is one of the ways for the state to show them that it sees them and is ready to protect them.
However, I do not think that the feeling for lack of support from the state, has a negative impact on the work of the prison guards and guards in prisons, and in this sense has an impact on law enforcement activities, of which the guards are the last link. The officers are selected through multi-stage competitions and meet high physical, mental and ethical requirements for holding the position. Everything is written in two laws and the lack of understanding on the part of their management could hardly shake them.
- Have you worked on cases in which the officers were attacked physically or mentally - what does this indicate about their real safety at work?
- I have worked on such cases - I have defended guards in cases of threats of murder or bodily harm, intimidation, bodily harm by prisoners. The very nature of the work of these officers hides a danger in itself, as it is related to the protection of people who have committed crimes - some of them very serious. For some prisoners, the process of socialization, re-education and correction does not produce the expected effect from the penitentiary system, which directly reflects on their daily environment in places of deprivation of liberty.
Our country's compliance with Euro-Atlantic values and requirements for “humane“ treatment of prisoners, one of the consequences of which is the ban on the carrying and use of weapons by guards inside prisons and detention centers, leads to an increase in the real danger to the security of employees, as some of the prisoners abuse their “rights”.
- How often do cases end with real justice for the employee?
- In my opinion, all cases, with negligible exceptions, in which I have defended guards, end with justice being served for them. This means to me that the court is an institution that can be trusted and that is staffed mostly by conscientious, knowledgeable and honest magistrates. Years ago, there was a belief that the “negatives” that guards suffer in connection with the restriction of some of their labor rights and/or their security are compensated by other social benefits such as the possibility of early retirement, more days of regular paid annual leave, first category work, which is why they “have to” put up with them, but I believe that this thinking has been overcome.