Ex-minister of Transport in Romania, Dan Șova, is suing the University of Bucharest; he is asking the judges in the Bucharest court to force the institution to pay him his salary as a professor for the time he was locked away in Jilava prison, where he served part of a three-year prison sentence in the CET Govora case for peddling influence. He had been accused of receiving a bribe of EUR 100,000.
Șova is considered to be one of the most arrogant politicians in Romania. Once, he tried to make the whole country believe that he had “lost” the original, signed contract with highway construction agency Bechtel, and that was the reason it could not be unsealed. Back then, Șova said that once it was found, its details would be revealed. The original, initial contract was, of course, never found.
Șova is a member of the teaching staff of the Faculty of Law at the University of Bucharest, and, at the time of his sentence, he was a lecturer for the Public Law Department of the Faculty of Law. However, right after his conviction, the University of Bucharest terminated Șova’s contract based on a provision in the Labor Code.
The University of Bucharest underlined in its defense: “During this period, the complainant did not carry out any work for the benefit of the University of Bucharest. He did not show up to work, not due to the will or fault of the employer, but because he was physically incapable of doing so, as he was definitively condemned to a punishment consisting of deprivation of liberty.”
The court had already ruled against Sova’s request. Last month, the Bucharest Court of Appeal rejected his appeal.
Featured photo: Dan Șova (digi24).
