The State Security Archive helped a senior living in the USA with his pension in the Czech Republic. It was in it that the public defender of rights Stanislav Křeček found proof of the man’s employment period before his emigration in the mid-1980s. last century. The Ombudsman was looking into the matter, he reported on it on his website on Thursday.
A Czech senior living in the USA found out when applying for a pension in the Czech Republic that the Czech Social Security Administration did not have his pension insurance record from his last employer. He thus lacked proof of almost nine years of employment before his emigration in 1984.
The Social Security Administration could not take this time into account when calculating the pension. When examining the case, the ombudsman confirmed that the administration did not make a mistake, on the contrary, it intensively tried to find out the period of the man’s employment. But unsuccessfully. The Ombudsman contacted the Archive of the Security Forces in the matter, where he was successful in the search.
“The irony of fate is that it was precisely the meticulous records of the socialist state apparatus that ultimately helped the complainant. After his emigration in the mid-1980s, the communist State Security established a file on the man and asked for a statement from his employer. This statement was ultimately the only document about the period of employment that was found,” Křeček summarized the unusual case. Thanks to the help of the ombudsman, a man living in the USA had his pension from the Czech Republic more than tripled. From the originally calculated 1300 to more than 4100 crowns.
According to the ombudsman, a similar search in the Archive of the Security Forces is an exceptional step. The probability that there will really be a document about the missing insurance period in this archive is very small. Therefore, the Czech Social Security Administration cannot contact the archive every time a pension applicant is missing an insurance period before 1989. The exception is cases of people who know that the State Security has been monitoring them. They can contact the archives themselves to find evidence or suggest it to Social Security Administration employees.
The basic proof of the insurance period is the pension insurance record sheet, which employers must send to the social security administration. If, as in the case of this applicant, it is missing, the pension applicant can also use other evidence. An employment contract, termination agreement, termination of employment, employment certificate or pay slips and payslips can serve as such.
Alternatively, sworn statements of at least two witnesses and the pension applicant are also sufficient. The complainant, who emigrated from Czechoslovakia in 1984, but had none of this at his disposal. He had not been in the Czech Republic for 40 years and had no idea where to look for former colleagues to provide him with an affidavit.
The Czech Social Security Administration was unable to locate any records, such as payslips, either in the Archives of the Capital City of Prague or in a private file cabinet, where part of the personnel documentation of the now defunct employer was supposed to be stored.
After the ombudsman sent the employer’s report on the course of employment to the Social Security Administration to the former State Security, the Social Security Administration evaluated this evidence as credible and recognized the complainant’s missing insurance period.
Tags: senior citizen living USA helped pension file StB maintained
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