Your child can fall ill at any time or place, so sometimes there may be situations where the parents cannot postpone their work obligations and stay at home to care for their child. If this happens, you can ask your relatives, acquaintances or another trusted person for help and the GP is obliged to issue a certificate for care leave to them. The certificate of care leave is a type of incapacity for work certificate and proves temporary incapacity for work.
Parents have the right to professional self-realisation, but they are also responsible for making sure that childcare is organised. They can therefore ask the GP to issue a certificate of care leave for a person they have chosen. Employers are obliged to allow them to stay at home with the child on the basis of a certificate of care leave. If necessary, a certificate of care leave can also be issued to different people for different days, which makes it possible to care for the child without anyone’s job being affected too much.
When caring for a sick child, even if different carers are used, the child’s best interests must always be a priority, and the same applies to the employer. Employers must not treat anyone unequally because they stayed home with a child and they are not entitled to ask the employee to describe the child’s situation – the existence of a certificate of care leave must be sufficient for employers.
The activities of an employer are also deemed to be discriminatory if the employer treats a person less favourably due to pregnancy, child-birth, parenting, performance of family obligations or other circumstances related to gender (subsection 6 (2) of the Gender Equality Act).
This explanation does not constitute legal aid in a specific case. Therefore, if you feel that you have been treated unequally, but you did not find a solution to your problem in this article, or if you have a question, please contact the Equality Commissioner by e-mail at avaldus@volinik.ee or telephone +372 626 9059. The anonymity of the person is guaranteed when contacting the Commissioner.
