Drafting an Equal-Opportunity Policy
An equal-opportunity policy in Georgia grows out of the norms of the Georgian Labour Code — not out of imported manuals. Federal equal-opportunity programmes of the United States type do not apply here: the lawfulness of a Georgian policy is determined by four norms — the scope of the prohibition, the status of special protective measures, the reasonable-accommodation requirement, and the internal rules as the policy's legal form. Drafting the document means taking three decisions: which conduct the policy excludes, which measures are permissible as protective, and who secures performance and how. The answers to all three questions come from the four norms of the Code, and a properly written policy is the continuation of precisely these norms, not a declaration alongside them.
The Scope of the Prohibition and Protective Measures
Article 5 is the policy's boundary norm: discrimination is prohibited in employment and pre-contractual relations — including when a vacancy is published and at the selection stage — and in professional activity. The prohibition covers selection criteria and employment conditions, access to career advancement at every level of the professional hierarchy regardless of the field of activity, access to professional orientation, qualification-raising, training and retraining in every form, the conditions of labour, remuneration and termination, membership and activity in associations of employees or employers, and occupational social-protection conditions, including social security and health protection. The policy should repeat this scope rather than exceed it with formulations that no longer rest on the law.
The second anchor is special measures of protection or support: they are not deemed discrimination. These are measures implemented to satisfy the needs of persons who, considering age, sex, disability, family responsibility, social or cultural status, require special protection or support. Writing protective formulations into a policy is therefore lawful — and this is precisely the channel through which a favourable approach to protected groups is possible.