the General Law of Labour in Public Functions, whenever a public servant is condemned for any sort of crime, the public prosecutor is already obliged to report that fact to the employers – which renders the duty to yearly present the criminal record certificate rather redundant, where public sector workers are concerned. Consequently, the Ombudsman recommended to the Assembly of the Republic the adoption of other legal solutions, that in a more economic and efficient way could guarantee that entities responsible for promoting activities involving regular contact with minors have adequate conditions to regularly assess the suitability of workers and volunteers for the exercise of their functions. • Recommendation No. 4/B/2016 Cases Q-3094/13, Q-985/13, Q-2873/15 et al. Entity addressed: Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security Date: 2016.10.14 Subject: Social protection in the event of unemployment. Rules applicable to the unemployed who do not receive unemployment benefits. Reduction and increase of the unemployment subsidy Status: Partially accepted After analysing several complaints filed by unemployed citizens, the Ombudsman concluded that the legal discipline of protection in the event of unemployment (contained in Decree-Law No. 220/2006) should be improved in various aspects. The Ombudsman issued a recommendation for the Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security to consider: a) adopting a legal discipline especially applicable to citizens enrolled in employment centres who are not receiving any subsidy; b) establishing limits to the reduction of 10% of the unemployment allowance after six months, provided for in No. 2 of article 28 of Decree-Law No. 220/2006, in order to assure a minimum grade of protection in the event of unemployment; and c) clarifying the scope of the unemployment benefit increase for families in a particularly fragile situation, in order to benefit all households where both spouses or equivalent are unemployed and have children to provide for. Since, at the time the recommendation was issued, the Parliament was discussing the Budget of State Law for 2017, the Ombudsman considered opportune to give notice of this recommendation also to this sovereign body. • 134 |