Out of the spotlight: The rights of foreigners and minorities are still a grey area bound by the European Social Charter and the ICESCR to respect the economic, social and cultural rights of the Roma in its territory. However, a number of treaties containing detailed stipulations regarding the protection of these rights are yet to be ratified. To date, Greece has not signed: • Protocol 4 to the European Convention on Human Rights Securing Rights and Freedoms Other than Those Already Included in the Convention and the First Protocol Thereto; • the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages; • the Council of Europe’s Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings. It has signed, but not ratified: • the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities; • the Revised European Social Charter; • Protocols 12 and 14 to the European Convention on Human Rights; • the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime Concerning Criminalisation of Acts of a Racist and Xenophobic Nature Committed Through Computer Systems. The situation created by these gaps in national legislation on specific provisions protecting the economic, social and cultural rights of minority groups in Greece has an adverse effect particularly on the Roma population. These are furthermore compounded by the authorities’ implementation of specific pieces of national legislation in ways that violate the fundamental human rights of this group. In particular, a Ministerial Decree adopted in 1983 (known as the Sanitary Regulation) concerning itinerant Roma, has been used by the authorities in a number of instances against itinerant and non-itinerant groups of Roma as a way of bringing charges against individuals, making them vulnerable to police arrest, and thus forcing them to relocate to areas outside Amnesty International 5 October 2005 47 the jurisdiction of those police departments. It should be noted that in fact this regulation had been amended in 2003 because it was considered to be a discriminatory law. 91 In relation to this representatives of the Greek state explicitly admitted, in the course of the proceedings before the European Committee of Social Rights (see below), that “Regarding the content of the sanitary provision and the obligations attaching to it, the State has never doubted the fact that certain parts of the provision in question could operate after all as a factor of social exclusion… For this reason, it proceeded to the substantial modification of the provision.” 92 The reports received by Amnesty International in the last two years suggest that despite this modification, this Law continued to be applied by police authorities in ways that violated the economic, social, and cultural rights of the Roma. Furthermore, Amnesty International has also received reports of police and judicial authorities having made racist remarks against the Roma in the process of examination of complaints filed by Romani individuals. These reports, outlined below, evidence further the need to review the legislative framework currently in force with a view to introducing new legislation that would guarantee the economic, social and cultural rights of the Roma in compliance with international law and standards, as well as combating the biases that might be held by representatives of state institutions. 3.3 Applying, interpreting, and enforcing International Law 91 European Committee of Social Rights, ERRC v. Greece, decision of 8 June 2005. Observations of the Hellenic Government on the substance of the Collective Complaint 15/2003, Doc Ref. No. 70600, Athens, 14 November 2003, at p. 3. 92 Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare document to the Secretariat of the European Social Charter, Ref. No. 70545, dated 5 November 2004, page 30. AI Index: EUR 25/016/2005