State administration on vacation

This decision was taken by the Albanian government on July 2011. Although the payment belongs to the vacations of 2010, the state employees will be obliged to return the money and receive in exchange an additional vacation during 2011.

In ministries and other institutions, this payment is being kept from the monthly wages, with installments, until a full compensation. The practice of converting vacations to payment has entered in force since 2002, by a decision of the then Socialist government. For the last 9 years, the Albanian state employees could agree with their employers to convert vacations they were entitled to, into a payment for the respecting days. Those who made use of this practice in 2010, now have to return the money back to the government.

But this government decision, for obliging the employees to return this payment, violates the Labor Code, specifically article 93. The 3rd clause of this article says that the yearly vacation cannot be used later than the first trimester of the next year, which for the case in question would be March 2011.

This government decision is a sub-legal act and the legal hierarchy, according to experts, puts it under the laws and articles that are approved with qualified majority. The decision in question is based on two articles: article 9936 for the management of the budget system in the Republic of Albania and law 10355 for the budget of 2011, but it bypasses the Code of Labor which states that vacations must be made during the respective year or in the first three months of the next year.

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