At the start of the academic year and once the placement procedure that applied the new regime of mobility due to illness of teachers has been completed, the Ombudsman addressed an initial appraisal of this regime to the Minister of Education, requesting that he issue a statement, specifically in relation to the convenience of its integration within a suitable general…
The Ombudsman’s Senior Citizens’ Hotline received 1,239 calls to date this year, with the greatest number of requests for assistance related to health (167). This data may confirm the inversion observed in 2021, when, for the first time in the 23 years of existence of this line dedicated to assisting senior citizens, health questions exceeded those related to social responses,…
The Ombudsman addressed an alert to the competent authorities after receiving various complaints from foreign citizens reporting difficulties encountered with services provided by the Institute of Social Security (ISS, IP) that are not taking into account the exceptional rules in force in relation to the regularity of their stay in national territory, thereby blocking access to various social benefits. At…
The commemoration of Children’s Day, this 1st June, provides an opportunity for the Ombudsman to present the community with a balance, albeit very brief, of the activity that has been developed in relation to the protection and defense of the rights of the youngest. Since 1993, the Provedoria’s services have made available a telephone line especially dedicated to issues related…
The Ombudsman submitted to the Constitutional Court a request for a declaration of unconstitutionality, with mandatory general force, of the norms included in numbers 5 and 6 of article 6, of Law nr. 27/2021, of May 17th, that approves the Portuguese Charter of Human Rights in the Digital Era. To read the appeal click here [in Portuguese only].
At the end of the Auto and IVAucher programs, the Ombudsman sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Fiscal Affairs, alerting to the receipt of various complaints in relation to both programs, in particular in relation to difficulties in access to the benefits granted by these programs due to reasons beyond the responsibility of taxpayers. Amongst the most…
The Ombudsman, Maria Lúcia Amaral, participated in the annual meeting of the Board of Directors of the IOI-International Ombudsman Institute, held from 10 to 12 May, in New York. As part of the meeting, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the IOI and the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), with a view to developing and implementing…
The Ombudsman once again addressed a letter to the Secretary of State for Social Security, drawing attention to the persistence of situations of exclusion from extraordinary social support, decreed in the framework of the Covid-19 pandemic, that generate unjustified social deprotection. The insistence arises after the content of the first warning call, made in May 2021, signalling discrimination against the…
The Ombudsman sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Inclusion of Disabled Persons, in which she notes as positive the approval of Administrative Rule no. 230/2021, of 29 October, nevertheless drawing attention to the persistence of serious situations of social unprotection. The aforementioned Ministerial Order made it possible to render feasible the entitlement to Social Inclusion Benefit (PSI)…
The Ombudsman’s Office sent a letter to the Secretary of State for Social Security in which it questions the restrictive manner in which the Civil Servants Pension Scheme (CGA) is applying the rules of access to early retirement for long contributory careers (46 years). For the purposes of access to this form of early retirement, the CGA has been demanding…