The Foundation for the Defense of the Citizen Against State Abuses (FACIAS) has recently launched a large-scale project dedicated to citizens who consider themselves wronged or abused by state institutions.
Following our appeal, since the first two weeks after the start of the campaign entitled "On the side of the citizen", dozens of citizens have written to us and described the problem they face.
FACIAS representatives have carefully analysed the situations reported and have responded to each letter sent to [email protected]. In some cases, which required the expert opinion of a legal expert, citizens received replies from FACIAS's legal department.
We will now report the conclusions drawn from our interaction with the real problems of citizens in their relationship with state institutions.
Most of those who have written to us are citizens who are deprived of the right to a pension calculated on the basis of their actual length of service. In short, the pensioners explained to us that although they had worked for considerable periods in the state system, the lack of a stamp on their work card meant that their years of service were not taken into account.
In analysing the situation, FACIAS has discovered in these cases, which certainly represent a tiny part of the total number of cases in the whole country, a problem of adaptation of the legislation to the reality of a category of citizens. Specifically, until 2001, pensions were not calculated on the basis of contribution criteria. Pensions were usually calculated on the basis of the last salaries, so previous entries in the employment record only counted for the purposes of calculating total length of service. For this reason, especially in the case of citizens who had worked for state-owned companies set up during the communist period and abolished after 1989, it was very likely that the stamp certifying the date of termination of the employment contract would no longer appear on the work card. After 2001, the pension law introduced the contributory pension calculation method and suddenly every year worked began to count towards the monthly pension. Pensions are calculated one by one and some pensioners find that the stamp that didn't count before becomes compulsory for the recalculation of their entitlements.
So here we are in a situation where the state has changed the rules on the fly, disregarding these situations. The consequence is that many citizens suddenly find themselves unable to prove some of their years of work, while most of the archives of former state companies have disappeared, burnt down or simply been destroyed.
FACIAS's legal department has researched this situation thoroughly and has come up with a solution that may resolve at least some of the issues. The person in this situation would have to find at least two former colleagues who have full details in their employment record and confirm in a court action that they worked with the citizen whose employment record is incomplete. Also, administratively, the two can make affidavits and together with the proof of employment can constitute good grounds for a claim directly to the pension fund.
Resident doctor, unpaid
Another case that caught our attention is that of a young resident doctor who explained that he is in a situation where he is paying for his residency but is not paid for his work in the hospital like any other resident. He is also on call, works day in and day out and is not paid, has no health insurance, no employment contract and no other benefits. FACIAS's legal department has informed the doctor of his legal rights and assured him of full cooperation and support in case of any one-off abuse.
Violations by some municipalities
FACIAS has also provided legal opinions to help in situations involving potential abuses by town halls, such as the case of a social housing applicant in Sector 1 of the capital who accuses the town hall of stealing documents from his file, or the case of a pensioner who claims that Breaza town hall unjustifiably refused to issue him a site permit.
The campaign "On the citizen's side" continues and we invite citizens who have suffered an abuse from any state institution to write to us at the following email address [email protected]. We don't guarantee that we can solve what paid officials don't want to do, but we believe that our approaches and a real focus on citizens' problems will help to solve situations that seem hopeless.