At the beginning of 2008 sick leave was caught in a legal trap that could lead to an avalanche of court claims, Dnevnik daily said.

The National Social Security Institute (NSSI) announced on January 6 that it could not pay sick leave in a three-day term after the receipt of the sick leave note, as the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) ruled. The NSSI put forward a request to abolish this ruling. However, it missed the 2-week term for appealing the SAC ruling and since the end of the first week of 2008 the court ruling was effective.

The SAC abolished a text from a government regulation obliging the NSSI to pay sick leave no later than one month after receiving the sick leave note, Dnevnik daily said. The magistrates requested that the NSSI pay the money in a three-day term as written in an international convention Bulgaria is part of since 1929. The NSSI, however, said this was technologically impossible and would only lead to a situation where no sick leave was paid on time, which could lead to a number of claims filed in court by unhappy citizens.

It became clear on January 6 that the SAC ruling had not been appealed against, neither by the NSSI nor by the Government within the 2-weeks term provided by law. The NSSI put forward its request to abolish the ruling after the term for appeals had already expired. However, jurists said in this case the NSSI did not have the right to appeal, nor to request abolition. Therefore the NSSI request would most probably not even be examined by the court since the law does not allow such a procedure when appealing normative acts. The only way to resolve the problem would be that the Government adopt new amendments to the regulation, jurists commented as reported by Dnevnik daily.

According to NSSI governor Jordan Hristoskov, the unfavourable to the NSSI ruling of the SAC was a result of a “terminological misunderstanding” when interpreting the meaning of the “waiting period” term.

Hristoskov said most of the sick leaves were paid by the end of the second week. In 2007 the NSSI paid for 2.25 million sick leaves and according to NSSI data only 39 000 of them were overdue past the 1-month term. The 2007 sick leave payments are estimated at 402 million leva or 45 million leva more than in 2006. All this according to Hristoskov refuted statements that patients used their annual leave instead of sick leave to avoid the chaos.

Unions on their part, expressed their support of the SAC ruling in a declaration.

One idea to speed up the process suggested that the documents be sent electronically from the employee's general practitioner or from the hospital directly to the NSSI without passing through the employer. To do this, however, the information systems of the NSSI, the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), hospitals and general practitioners would have to be made compatible. The information system of the NHIF, however, was still not ready.

Expectations were that by the end of 2008 employees would be notified via text messaging or e-mail that their sick leave money had been transferred, Dnevnik daily said.