Justice Minister says funds are scarce for salaries, auxiliary personnel threatens to resume protest

Predoiu added the ministry went through with all the legal proceedings to pay the rights invoked by protesters, but the general economic background imposed a negative revision of the budget, which led to a fund shortage for the payment of salary arrears.

The justice minister said the payment that was supposed to be made on March 10 cannot be granted at the moment and that the representatives of Projust warned they would proceed to another even larger protest and will address the Labor Ministry as well. 

Head of Projust Stefania Teleman declared for NewsIn that the meeting with Predoiu was calm, but with no results. Therefore, the auxiliary personnel in the justice department is determined to call a warning strike starting with April 15 and, if no solution is reached, to go on a general strike from April 21 onwards. 

Representatives of the Projust federation, who organized the protest today in front of the Justice Ministry, were invited for talks by minister Predoiu. 

Hundreds of persons representing auxiliary personnel in many courts throughout the country began a protest today in front of the Justice Ministry, asking for the resignation of minister Predoiu and accusing him of failing to respect the court order regarding the payment of salary arrears. 

“We protest for the rights we have gained in court,” declared Teleman, clerk at the Bucharest Court of Appeal. 

Many courts throughout Romania temporarily suspended trial sessions today in protest. Some 100 clerks and archivers in the southeastern city of Galati stopped their activity for two hours and other 40 clerks in northeastern Iasi joined in. Auxiliary personnel working in northern Maramures also ceased work to protest against the decision of the Justice Ministry. 

The auxiliary personnel in Romania’s justice department are set to continue street protests, unhappy with the ordinance on justice salaries which slashes some bonuses.

At the end of March Teleman told NewsIn that a first part of bonuses granted by the law should have been paid to the auxiliary personnel. However, not only this failed to happen, but the Justice Ministry initiated a draft law granting magistrates all salary rights, slashing bonuses for the auxiliary personnel.

What’s more, the justice minister Catalin Predoiu asked that protests cease “immediately”, labeling the move as unjustified, according to a release.

Staff working as auxiliary personnel in Romania’s justice is not the sole social category unhappy with the wages. Teachers also threatened to call a big strike and even block the school year if the Cabinet applies either of the two measures it announced last week. Education employees had two options according to the central authorities, to either do without some of the bonuses or fire 20,000 teachers.

At the beginning of the year, the Cabinet announced plans to drastically cut spending by 20 percent in order to face the reducing collections to the budget, caused by the economic crisis which forced big companies to fire people and decrease production.