The Intellectual Staff Guild of TEPAK (SAP-TEPAK) expresses its intention to file an appeal in the court decision to reject an appeal against the protocol applied by the University.
In a statement, the Guild states that there were three central issues in its lawsuit that remain unanswered: the legality, necessity and proportionality of the protocol measures, the complete lack of consultation with the guild on collective issues concerning the working conditions of its members and the ambiguity about what the responsibilities of the Senate are.
The union, he added, has claimed and is claiming the human and labor rights of each of its members without discrimination and notes that, it was forced to go to court “after the arrogant attitude of the administration and with pain of soul, while repeated efforts were made to allow non-members to teach us from a distance and they were all rejected. “
“The appeal of the union was rejected due to the acceptance of preliminary objections and not for reasons of substance”, he states and expresses the view that the court did not consider that the measures of TEPAK were legal or constitutional and did not proceed to examine the issues raised on the substance.
Among other things, the Guild notes that, despite the given respect for the court decision, “we are of the opinion that the necessary attention was not paid to elements that had to be examined”, citing as an example the fact that it was not examined whether the July 2021 decree included a relevant provision that either regulates the mode of operation of the universities, or allows the universities to take more stringent health measures, “however the decision states that TEPAK relied on this”.
It recalls that the Commissioner for Administration and Protection of Human Rights, in her recent report, has questioned whether TEPAK has the legal cover to adopt these measures.
He also states that, although the legal representative of TEPAK stated publicly that the Administrative Court also examined the substance of the appeal, “the final written and public text does not confirm such a thing”.
SAP-TEPAK states that “this position of the legal advisor of TEPAK is not confirmed by the facts and is untrue”, while it speaks of “a systematic effort to create false impressions and once again the media are used to promote untruths”.
The issue for the union, he added, has never been sanitary measures issued by the relevant government bodies and it is underlined that “our union concerns are focused on the problematic processes and arbitrary decisions that have been adopted and continue to ignore basic human rights.”
“It is for this very reason that the result of the appeal is problematic and an appeal follows”, points out SAP-TEPAK and concludes by saying that “the pandemic does not justify either inhumanity or irregularity”.
