The Equality Commissioner recommends the Ice Hockey Association to settle the case and pay compensation to the parties involved in suspected cases of racism in junior ice hockey.
The Commissioner for Equality has issued a new statement on the case related to suspected cases of racism in junior hockey.
The commissioner recommends that the Ice Hockey Association apologize for its discriminatory practices and countermeasures. The union should also commit to correcting its practices so that indirect discrimination does not happen again.
– The presumption of discrimination has not been rebutted. We still have a situation where our assessment is that the young player has been discriminated against and the coach has been subjected to prohibited countermeasures. Our wish would be that the Ice Hockey Federation could apologize and settle this matter with these persons, equality affairs team leader Robin Harms commented to Urheilu.
In addition, the association should replace the club and the coach Juha Sokan legal fees, which are around 5,000 euros. Its union should pay 3,000 euros to the junior player for discrimination and 3,000 euros to coach Soka for prohibited countermeasures.
In order to reach a settlement, the junior player and the coach undertake that they will not make any other demands on the Ice Hockey Association or its representatives. The commissioner hopes that the parties will come to an agreement so that they can avoid legal proceedings.
According to the commissioner, the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation has given insufficient evidence and incorrect claims in its response, for example regarding the training of referees.
The statement also says that the Jääkiekkoliitto has not implemented the values to which it is committed in non-discrimination in its competition practices.
– The good thing is that the Ice Hockey Federation has now updated its instructions. However, there is an impression that the Ice Hockey Federation may not have understood that the law and especially fundamental rights come before such internal instructions in the hierarchy of norms, says Harms.
Last fall, a player of the Lahti Pelicans U13 junior team told his coach at the end of the match that he was the target of a racist insult. Earlier, the Jääkiekkoliitto rejected the equality commissioner’s settlement proposal and transferred the handling of the case to a law firm.
Managing director Sami Kauhanen said in mid-May that the union has made its own reconciliation proposal. It is ready to apologize, but does not want to pay compensation.
– Perhaps it has been somewhat surprising that, based on the statements made by the representatives of the Ice Hockey Federation, doubts have arisen as to how seriously these matters are taken, says Harms.
– We would also have waited, and we are still waiting, if we could discuss, for example, reconciliation, instead of the dialogue just being the sending of written statements in one direction and the other.
What happens next if the Ice Hockey Federation does not accept the settlement proposal?
– Don’t get ahead of things. The hope is that a reconciliation could still be reached here. But the matter is important in principle, and then the equality commissioner will have to consider whether he will take this matter to the equality and equality board, in which case we would get a legally binding decision that the prohibitions of discrimination and countermeasures have been violated. But, like I said, don’t get ahead of things.
Be the first to report on the equality commissioner’s statement Helsingin sanomat newspaper.