Occasion death of a professor from COVID-19the Administrative Appeals Court of Athens determines when it is possible and when it is not possible to appoint a child of a civil servant who died during the execution of the of his work.
In the framework of the State’s care for the support of the family of an employee who died during the service, it legislated to enable a member of his family, up to the first degree of consanguinity, to be appointed to the State or the wider public sector, in a vacancy organic position, commensurate with the qualifications it possesses.
For the appointment of a relative of the deceased, a priority order is observed, according to the degree of kinship. The spouse of the deceased or the person with whom the deceased entered into a cohabitation agreement precedes, followed by his/her children, parents and siblings. Now, if there are two children or two siblings, then the older one comes first.
Declarations of resignation
However, the application must necessarily be accompanied by a statement of resignation from the other relatives who precede the person requesting the beneficial right of appointment.
The nomination application must be submitted within five years of the date of death. However, in case of death of the appointee before his permanent appointment, the right of appointment passes to another member of the deceased’s family.
In order to activate these beneficial provisions for appointing a relative of the deceased, it is not enough “only the fact that the death of the employee occurred during the performance of his work or on the occasion thereof, but it must occur while he was performing a service assigned to him and because of this the death”. And not only that.
The decision as to whether the death of the employee occurred in the performance of his official duty and because of it, “must be fully reasoned, in a manner that cannot be disputed and scientifically documented”.
He got a coronavirus
An educator, he taught at a high school in Achaia and in February 2021 he got stuck coronavirus. He was initially quarantined and then transferred to Rio Hospital. There he was treated in a simple COVID clinic, but due to the deterioration of his health, he was intubated. Unfortunately, however, after 25 days he passed away.
The cause of death was recorded as “heart failure due to infection COVID and multiple organ failure”.
Subsequently, the son of the deceased submitted an application to be appointed to the State as the child of a deceased teacher in service, making use of the beneficial provisions of law 2266/1994.
In order to establish whether the son of the deceased teacher really has the prescribed conditions for his appointment, an EDE was ordered, in order to determine whether his father’s death is indeed directly or indirectly related to the exercise of his educational duties.
According to the EDE, the teacher who suffered from an autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis) and was on chronic immunosuppressive therapy had come within a very short distance of a student who had climbed up on the blackboard during class, and then talked to the same student about his performance.
Afterwards, the student’s mother informed the high school principal that she did not send her son to school as a precaution, because she had been in contact with his father, who was confirmed positive for COVID, and the very next day, the student also tested positive.
According to the EDE’s conclusion, “it appears with an extremely high probability” that the teacher “caught coronavirus in the school area while on duty and this is what led to his death”. It is also noted that “it is suspected that there is a causal connection between his death and the performance of his official duties” and consequently “there is a high probability that the statutory requirements will be fulfilled conditions for his appointment to the State».
The request was rejected
Despite all this, the Ministry of Education rejected the request for appointment with the argument that it is not clearly established, but merely presumed, that there is a necessary causal connection between the death and the performance of the teacher’s official duties. But also from the conclusion of the EDE “there is no proof of the existence of a causal link between the death of the victim and the execution of ordered service by him, which is a condition for the legality of the appointment of his child”.
After the son’s objection, a supplementary EDE was ordered, which accepts that the deceased indeed contracted COVID while on duty and that there is a “causal connection between his death and the performance of his official duties”. But again the ministry refused the appointment, citing that no new evidence emerged.
However, the Athens Administrative Court of Appeals ruled that the ministry’s refusal does not clearly show that it “sufficiently investigated the circumstances of the applicant’s father’s death, nor evaluated all the facts and data that emerged.”
Thus, the appellants annulled the decision of the ministry and referred the case to it, “in order to make a new legal and sufficiently justified judgement”.
PHOTO: EUROKINISSI
