The President of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, announced today that he has returned to the Government without promulgation the decree regarding mechanisms for convergence of the social protection regime of the Civil Service with the General Social Security Regime.
The decree follows the interpretation of the Supreme Administrative Court (STA) that recognizes the right of these people to rejoin the CGA, as explained by the Minister of the Presidency, António Leitão Amaro, in the Council of Ministers where it was approved in July.
The National Federation of Teachers (Fenprof) argued today that the law “is clear in establishing that, as of January 1, 2006, no new registrations are allowed in the CGA”.
“It is therefore clarified that those registered until December 31, 2005, are not covered by that legal provision, regardless of whether or not they have interruptions in the exercise of their public functions, a fact that the law does not even mention. The clarity of the legal provision deserved from the courts interpretation and decisions unanimously favorable to the claim of teachers who, prevented from maintaining the status of CGA subscribers, requested re-registration,” states the union federation.
Fenprof accuses the executive of omitting STA decisions rejecting Government appeals contesting the recognition of the right of re-registration to teachers with discontinuities in the exercise of functions, “to the point of having stopped appealing the decisions” and having “immediately accepted the decision contained in the judgments”.
“What the government intends is not to interpret a law that does not need clarification, but to change it using, abusively, an interpretative norm. What the government intends is to stop court decisions and prevent teachers and other CGA subscribing workers from maintaining that quality,” criticizes the federation.
Following the return without promulgation of the decree, the Government will approve a bill regarding the right of re-entry into the Caixa Geral de Aposentações (CGA) for civil servants, which will have to go through parliament, to respond to the President’s veto.
CGA registrations have been closed since 2006, with civil servants admitted thereafter being registered with Social Security, and what the newly approved decree ensures is the right of these workers to return to the CGA, clarifying that this right is limited only to those who “had material continuity in their different bonds”.
At stake are, therefore, those people, such as teachers, for example, who after 2006, “switched from entity A to entity B […], but with material continuity in the civil service”, with the law guaranteeing them the right to return to the CGA.
