A leaked confidential report into the work of the European Parliament’s dedicated harassment complaints committee has revealed the body is barely fit for purpose, with major difficulties investigating and prosecuting cases, trouble deciding a legal definition of harassment and establishing hard evidence.
The European Parliament faces multiple challenges in investigating allegations of sexual harassment, according to a confidential report privately circulated in Brussels in January, recently revealed to the public by Politico Europe.
The report, issued by a parliament committee set up in 2014 to deal with harassment complaints between parliamentary assistants and MEPs, details a range of difficulties the committee faces in investigating and prosecuting cases — including trouble finding a precise legal definition of harassment, establishing hard evidence and handling investigations in a timely manner.
In respect of timing, the committee’s glacial approach to investigations is attributable to its size — it consists of a single parliamentary assistant, single parliamentary civil servant, and three MEPs. In 2013, the European Ombudsman reprimanded parliament for taking in excess of a year to process a sexual harassment complaint filed by an intern.
Also hampering the harassment committee’s work, the report said, was the question of how to evaluate evidence from relatives of complainants (ie “Can a mother or sister provide unbiased evidence?”).
Another problem is translators have failed in many cases to translate written evidence containing vulgarity accurately, often producing misleading translations as a result.