What Discrimination and Harassment at Work Mean
A claim for discrimination or harassment rests entirely on the Georgian Labour Code. Under the Code, discrimination is the intentional or negligent distinction, exclusion or preference of a person on grounds of race, colour, language, ethnic or social origin, nationality, origin, property or social status, employment contract status, place of residence, age, sex, sexual orientation, disability, state of health, membership of a religious, public, political or other association, family status or other opinion, where it aims at or causes the negation or impairment of equal opportunity or treatment in employment and professional activity. The Code distinguishes direct discrimination — less favourable treatment compared with a person in a comparable situation — from indirect discrimination, where a neutral provision, criterion or practice places a person at a disadvantage unless it is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and necessary, proportionate means.
Harassment at the workplace, including sexual harassment, is expressly declared a form of discrimination: unwanted conduct related to a protected ground that aims at or causes a violation of dignity and the creation of an intimidating, hostile, degrading or offensive environment. Sexual harassment specifically covers spoken or addressed phrases of a sexual nature, the showing of genitals or any other non-verbal physical conduct of a sexual nature. Retaliation is separately prohibited: terminating the contract or any negative treatment of an employee because they filed a statement or complaint to protect themselves from discrimination, or cooperated with the relevant body, is banned.
Burden of Proof and Employer Liability
The most consequential procedural rule in discrimination disputes is the redistribution of the burden of proof. If a candidate or employee points to facts or circumstances that create a reasonable assumption that the employer violated the prohibition of discrimination, the burden of proving the opposite shifts to the employer. In practice this means you do not have to prove discrimination outright — it is enough to present facts supporting a reasonable assumption, and the employer must then justify its conduct.
A violation of the prohibition of discrimination — including direct and indirect discrimination, harassment and sexual harassment — triggers a warning or a fine imposed under the procedure established by the Code, in the triple amount of the corresponding fine. A repeat of the same violation within 1 calendar year of the imposition of the administrative penalty results in a fine at twice the amount. Critically, imposing liability on the offending employee does not release the employer: the employer may itself be held liable if it became aware of harassment or sexual harassment and failed to notify the Labour Inspectorate and/or failed to take appropriate measures to stop the conduct.