A jurisprudência do Comité Europeu de Direitos Sociais em tempos de crise económica: as decisões relativas à Grécia

In order to fully assess the role played by the European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) during the current economic and financial crisis, the particularities that have characterized – and that still characterize – its intense activity are highlighted; particularities resulting mainly from its conclusions, in relation to the reports periodically submitted by the States, and its decisions on the merits in collective complaints submitted by the social partners and by international non-governmental organizations empowered to do so. In the study, we analyse, in particular, the ECSR decisions on the merits of five complaints concerning Greece, submitted in 2012. From these decisions result, on the one hand, the recognition and delimitation of the principle of non-regression, deduced a contrario from article 12(3) of the European Social Charter; and, on the other hand, the imposition of specific procedural obligations to the States, which are functionalised to the principles of proportionality, reasonableness and to the democratic principle itself. These obligations are supported by the requirement to verify if there are alternative austerity measures, suitable for the pursuit of the public interest with less sacrifice of the social and individual rights involved. In order to effectively guarantee social rights in Italian law, we also hope that the relevance of the European Social Charter and the hermeneutical contributions of the respective supervisory body will be enhanced by national courts, through, where necessary, a clear application of the principle of maximum expansion of protection, that reflects the need to guarantee the rationality and cohesion of an internationally integrated guarantee system, in which the Italian legal system is inevitably inserted. Lastly, this study demonstrates that the growing reliance by individuals and the community on the numerous jurisdictional and supervisory bodies already available at regional and global levels is becoming increasingly unstoppable: another way of conceiving the protection of rights; an unmistakable echo of the theory of legal and constitutional pluralism.