By Lara Holmes

The Full Court of Costa Rica agreed last year to increase from 8 to 12 years, the severance pay for all court employees, not counting at the time with the money to fund the benefit.

The judges took the decision on May 11, 2011 at the request of the employee associations and it became final on 23 June of that year.

This provision will take effect from 23 June this year for all judicial officers, including judges. THere are 9,758 people working in the judiciary.

 

The severance pay is compensation paid to the employer when workers are dismissed with employer liability or because they are unemployed.

 

Before, the judiciary had a cap of eight-year layoff that is, paid a month's salary for each year of service up to a maximum of eight years.

The increase to 12 years governed at a time when the financial crisis forced the Court to cut costs, for example, the game officials for the appointment of substitutes. The application of the adjustment will be gradual.

Employees who leave after June 23, 2012 will be paid nine years of unemployment and those who leave after June 23, 2013, 10 years. Those who withdraw after one year later will receive payment for 11 years and those who will the following year for 12 years.

This increase was approved by a vote of 10 judges of the 17 present. In the session there were five justices and 12 judge alternates.

For this topic there were problems integrating the Court, as judges and alternates, who are judges, were inhibited after claiming that any decision could benefit them.

In the minutes of the session of 2011, Alfredo Jones, executive director of the Judiciary, said in a note: Neither in the 2011 budget nor the budget 2012, are there resources that have been included to address the impact that the increase in the number of years, for the concept of unemployment.

This fact led Judge Maria del Rocio Hernandez Cart to request a financial report to determine the economic impact on the budget.

Francisco Arroyo Melendez, Chief of Staff of the Judiciary, who attended the meeting, said that effectively the resources are not built to dispose of them at this time (...) but it should be noted that the judiciary has budgetary changes that could give content.

He said places are budgeted annually whose selection process is slower, which generates small savings that ultimately add between ¢ 3,000 to ¢ 6,000 million (USD 5 to 11 million), which could be used to cover the increased ceiling of unemployment.

Arroyo estimated the cost would be about an additional ¢500 million (nearly one million USD).

Alfred Jones told local media that, in compliance with the agreement of the judges, measure have been taken to the budget estimates for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015.