Lawyer Pedro da Quiteria Faria stated that the redistribution of higher technical specialists in schools years after their inclusion in the Ministry of Education's staff is 'legally questionable,' and previous court rulings were favorable to the workers.
The labor law specialist noted that 'revisiting the redistribution years after inclusion raises serious doubts' in his comment to the Lusa agency.
In recent years, psychologists, social workers, mediators, and speech therapists were included in school staffs through the Program for Emergency Normalization of Precariat Ties in Public Administration (PREVPAP), launched in 2017.
As reported by the newspaper Público, the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (MECI) decided to review the career status of these specialists because it believed that evaluation scores from the 2017–2018 period should not be taken into account for promotion in subsequent years.
In some cases, excluding these scores could lead to specialists being placed at a lower level, and at the end of last year, affected workers were notified about the need to return to the state the difference in salary received since the promotion.
According to Pedro da Quiteria Faria, the non-recognition of scores from 2017–2018 is 'legally questionable' because it contradicts Article PREVPAP concerning the calculation of previous service time, which stipulates that 'the time spent performing functions in the situation that served as the basis for emergency normalization matters for career development' for the purpose of career restoration.
Furthermore, the labor law specialist questions the review of the career status, especially regarding the 'protection of the trust and good faith of employees whose status was determined by the Administration's own act.' The lawyer also points out the lack of responsibility on the part of the workers in this process when they were asked to return the salary.
Emphasizing that the remuneration of these technical specialists was not the result of a 'simple processing error,' Pedro da Quiteria Faria explains that the level at which they were placed upon inclusion resulted from the application of 'legal rules for curricular evaluation and career restoration.'
He stressed that the 'legitimacy of the return (of salary) is highly debatable,' adding that the 1992 decree-law establishing the regime of state financial administration provides that 'the obligation to reimburse received sums expires five years after receipt.'
According to Público, in 2025, the Administrative and Fiscal Court of Viseu upheld the claim of a speech therapist who had never seen recognition of the scores obtained in 2017 and 2018, granting him the right to placement at the fourth level and payment of due amounts.
Pedro da Quiteria Faria asserts that this decision 'fully aligns with established judicial practice,' recalling rulings by the Central Administrative Court of the South (TCAS) that similarly reject the interpretation limiting the calculation of seniority to a specific period.
In these 2025 decisions, TCAS states that workers' seniority must be calculated from the beginning of the services provided that formed the basis for the emergency normalization process, in accordance with the principle of continuity of public function performance. Therefore, even if administrative court decisions do not formally oblige other courts in different cases, the lawyer believes there is a 'stabilized judicial trend in favor of workers.'