Where the Boss is Judge and Jury

Where the Boss is Judge and Jury / Cuban Law Association, Eliocer Cutino
Rodriguez
Posted on September 23, 2013

Many people work in the TRD* chain of shops, subject to what may be
called military regulations. A vast number of those workers are unaware
of the rights which could help them in the face of possible violations
of labor discipline.

How could a process be fair in which, per Resolution 1072 of 2011 which
regulates this activity, the person who issues the sanction is the same
person who addresses the initial claim?

Setting aside, obviously, the possibility that this person recognizes
that he made a mistake in the first place and the affected party gets a
favorable response.

Nevertheless, workers who appeal – because they disagree with the
outcome – would only have the route of going back to their immediate
bosses who disciplined them in the first place, without having the
slightest possibility of the judicial system hearing the matter and
perhaps resolving it in accordance with the law, which by constitutional
mandates would apply to this situation.

It is a process lacking in transparency and impartiality, which has been
abolished for many years in the contemporary legal world. This idea
could be tried among the TRD workers in the discussion of the future
Workers' Code in this country and perhaps lay a new foundation for what,
on the issue of labor discipline, the military institutions have
encouraged, completely alienated from the institutions that administer
the law such as the Popular Courts.

*Translator's note: TRD is the acronym for "Tiendas de Recuperacion de
Divisas"; literally "Stores for Recovering Hard Currency." These are the
stores operated by the State which sell only in hard currency (Cuban
Convertible Pesos, or CUC). They are the only source of many basic
products available legally nowhere else (as well as luxuries), and are
designed to "recover" the cash sent to Cubans as remittances from
friends and family abroad, a function clearly stated in the name the
State has chosen to give them.

Translated by LYD

20 September 2013

Source: "Where the Boss is Judge and Jury / Cuban Law Association,
Eliocer Cutino Rodriguez | Translating Cuba" -
http://translatingcuba.com/where-the-boss-is-judge-and-jury-cuban-law-association-eliocer-cutino-rodriguez/