There is a peculiar unfairness in expecting someone who has been treated unfairly to become an expert in getting it put right. They already have a life to lead. Work to get to, perhaps children to collect, an evening they had hoped to spend doing something other than assembling evidence that they deserved ordinary treatment.
This is one way to consider the Council of Europe’s reported new study of anti-racism policies in the Western Balkans and the Eastern Partnership region. Its announcement describes both progress and gaps. That does not tell us which measures work, or how those gaps are experienced, and it would be wrong to supply the missing findings. It does offer a reason to examine what we mean when we say a policy represents progress.
A protection can exist while remaining exhausting to use. Consider what making a complaint might demand: understanding the procedure, finding the right person, explaining an incident again, then deciding whether to continue when the response is unhelpful. These are practical possibilities, not findings attributed to this study. They matter because a system can appear accessible to its designers while asking rather a lot of someone already under strain.
There is a complication. Institutions cannot resolve every incident without being told about it. Fair procedures need evidence, and the person accused must also be treated fairly. Making a complaint effortless is neither a realistic promise nor a sufficient test of justice.
Still, necessary care is different from avoidable difficulty. Whoever designs a process has choices about how much of the work is passed to the person seeking help.
That has a bearing on ordinary life well beyond government policy. At work, in a school or within an organisation, saying “they can always complain” can become a convenient way of ending our own involvement. The formal route exists; therefore we feel our responsibility has been discharged.
Before offering that reassurance, it is worth finding out where the route actually leads. Who answers? What happens next? Can someone ask for help without putting the rest of their life on hold? Those are questions the people responsible for a policy should be able to answer before someone else has to test it.