Spectacular rise in employment litigations

As a result of economic meltdown generated problems and conflicts, the number of employment litigations that have gone to court has spiked.

In the first quarter of 2010 alone 70,000 such lawsuits got into court, almost as many as in the entire 2009, when there were 76,000 cases.

Members of the Superior Council of Magistracy (CSM) have noticed an overwhelming rise in the number of files and were allarmed at the ever-growing workload, while the number of judges has been the same since 1993.

CSM has warned that, unless more magistrates are brought in, the quality of the lawsuits and the Romanian citizens’ right to a fair trial will be affected.

Three times as many lawsuits in Bistriţa.

In Bistriţa, for example, compared to last year, the court has three times more lawsuits from employment litigations, declaring bankruptcy and initiation of the insolvency procedure.

These are the prevailing cases, since thousands have lost their jobs, many companies have closed down and public servants have lost 25 percent of their salaries.
Last year the Bistriţa Năsăud Court magistrates had to solve 5,700 cases.

Until September this year there has been a total of 9,500 files registered at the Bistriţa Năsăud Court.

"We estimate until the end of this year we will have about 11,000 cases, the sections with a growing caseload are the civil section, the commercial and fiscal and administrative claims section", Dana Ceuca, Bistriţa Năsăud Court spokesperson declared.

4,500 lawsuits at the Civil Section

Dana Ceuca added that 4,500 files have been registered at the court’s Civil Section.

"Employment litigations are the most common, because of the unilateral changes in work reports, and because dispositions from the laws that regulate their financial rights are being ignored".

"At Bistriţa Năsăud we have had teachers come in with litigations because they hadn’t received their financial rights since 2008, even 2009", Bistriţa Năsăud Court spokesperson explained.

3000 files are currently registered at the Commercial Section.

Because of their large number, files will even be judged in February next year.

"Some cases are indeed scheduled to be solved in January, even February, but only because of the ever-increasing workload", Dana Ceuca stated.

The Superior Council of Magistracy is currently working to establish the optimum workload for next year, after an allarming rise in files registered nation-wide.

Translated by: Gabriela Lungu
MA Student, MTTLC, University of Bucharest