“Maintaining the current interpretation means unfairly limiting access to and the value of pensions, putting into question the protection of workers who had contributory careers divided between different regimes”, maintains the Ombudsman’s Office, which sent a letter to the president of the ISS Board of Directors expressing its disagreement.
At issue is the interpretation of the regime carried out by the ISS and the General Directorate of Social Security (DGSS)which consider a minimum of 12 months of discounts under the Social Security scheme to be required for the purposes of attributing a unified pension (attributed in cases of contribution to both schemes — Social Security and Caixa Geral de Aposentações).
According to the Ombudsman’s Office, “this requirement does not result from the law, but from a ministerial order”, which highlights that it is a “legal instrument without the force to create or restrict rights in relation to legal diplomas of a higher hierarchy”.
Thus, he maintains, “the practice followed by Social Security contradicts the unified pension regime”.
In this context, the Ombudsman’s Office recommended that the ISS “change its position” and start considering, for the purposes of totalization, “all periods with non-overlapping remuneration records within the scope of Social Security, even if less than 12 months”.