Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan stated on Tuesday that in recent years, judges have filed over 20,000 lawsuits for salary rights due to the unclear and interpretable salary law.
“This situation, which is related to both the quality of the legislation and its interpretation, has led us to a point where in recent years we have had over 20,000 lawsuits in Romanian courts filed by people in the justice system for salary rights,” the Prime Minister said in a press conference held at the Victoria Palace. Details HERE.
He detailed that these lawsuits were based on “aspects of salary discrimination - the fact that there are higher salaries at a special prosecutor's office compared to a normal prosecutor's office -, on the granting of bonuses, on compensations for unsuitable working conditions.”
As a result of these actions, the Romanian governments in recent years have been obliged to pay huge amounts through final court decisions.
“The Romanian governments in recent years have prepared and had to pay approximately 10 billion lei through enforceable titles, which means approximately 2 billion euros in salary differences in this system,” Bolojan emphasized.
Bolojan specified that a portion of these amounts has been staggered, but “last year's amount has not yet been paid” and that “there are still a stock of sentences,” with amounts reevaluated and calculated recently.
“Other billions of lei. This means an unpredictable salary system, which means significant amounts of money for the Romanian state that cannot be foreseen, for which there are no estimates from one year to the next,” the Prime Minister said.
The Prime Minister announced that the Government will propose a modification to the salary law, most likely in the autumn. “For stability and predictability, the salary law must be changed, which could happen in the autumn. These tens of thousands of lawsuits that are anyway out of place could be avoided,” Bolojan said.
At the same time, the Prime Minister presented the changes prepared for the reform of special pensions for magistrates. Among these:
- Increasing the retirement age to 65;
- Increasing the minimum seniority from 25 to 35 years;
- Decreasing the service pension from 80% of gross to a maximum of 70% of the last net salary.
“The average pension in the justice system is approximately 25,000 lei net, which is 5,000 euros net,” added Ilie Bolojan.