The maintenance allowance, set by the court at a fixed amount, will be at least 50% of the minimum subsistence amount (annual average). It will be paid in subsequent years in accordance with the annual amount updated by the National Bureau of Statistics, without the need for a new court judgment. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection has drawn up a draft to supplement the Family Code with this mechanism for indexing the child maintenance allowance, IPN reports.
The draft was drawn up after the Constitutional Court, in November, declared unconstitutional the legislative omission in Article 108 of the Family Code to regulate a mechanism for indexing the fixed amount of child maintenance allowance.
Thus, the legislative initiative is intended to establish a mechanism for the automatic revalorization of the child maintenance allowance set at a fixed monetary amount which cannot be less than 50% of the minimum subsistence level (annual average) of the population category corresponding to the maintenance creditor for the previous year, as determined by the BNS.
"All maintenance payments, set by the court in a fixed monetary amount, will keep pace with the fluctuation in the annual average value of the minimum subsistence published and updated annually by the National Bureau of Statistics," the MMPS says.
For example, if the maintenance allowance for a child aged 7 was set in 2022 at a fixed monetary amount of 60% of the average subsistence minimum, which is 1733.15 lei, because the average subsistence minimum set by the NBS for the population category "children aged 7-17 years" is 2888.6 lei, in 2023, the same amount of 60% will be 1899.06 lei, because the value of the average subsistence minimum has increased to 3165.1 lei for this population category.
The payment of the maintenance pension in question will be made in full, which means that it is not necessary to file additional court proceedings to demand the payment of the pension in the updated amount, according to the draft law.
The burden of tracking the fluctuation in the amount of the subsistence minimum is placed on the maintenance debtor, i.e. the person who has to make the payment.
The draft also stipulates that the court judgment fixing the amount of maintenance in a fixed monetary amount is an enforceable title, which can be presented to the bailiff if the debtor fails to pay the maintenance in the amount of the maintenance adjusted accordingly.
