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– No one has been convicted just for staying abroad, but for not informing Nav about this, satirical lawyer for Nav cases, Henry John Mæland, told the EFTA Court when the hearing on the scandal took place. social security on Thursday.
The court has been asked to clarify the extent to which Norway has violated EEA rules by requiring recipients of sickness benefits, dispatch benefits and care benefits to reside in Norway.
The authorities have acknowledged that the rules were violated since June 1, 2012, when the new EU social security regulation came into force, and until last fall, when the social security scandal broke out in public. EEA rules on free movement take precedence over Norwegian law.
During this period, at least 86 people may have been wrongly convicted of social security fraud, 48 of them to prison.
– pure lie
The leader of the organization for those affected by the Nav (Nav-it) scandal, Rune Halseth, tells NTB that he jumped in the chair when he heard Mæland’s statement.
The hearing in the EFTA Court on the Nav scandal began on Thursday. Photo: Vidar Ruud / NTB
– What you say is completely wrong. People have asked Nav to travel abroad and got a yes, including me, in exchange for calling back after 14 days. Yet we have been condemned, Halseth emphasizes.
– Then what he’s saying is a lie. It’s very serious, he says.
Halseth himself was sentenced to five months in prison in 2017. The sentence was served the following year.
On Thursday, he was demoted by other Nav convicts who followed the digital broadcast of the EFTA Court hearing.
– There are many who react to Mæland’s statement, says Halseth.
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He also accuses the shipowner’s attorney of omitting important dimensions from his statement.
– What it does not mention is the Nordic agreement that beneficiaries of social security have the same rights in the Nordic countries as in their country of origin. Nor did he mention that Nav has agreements with many countries in Europe for people who receive job dispatch money, so they can keep the activity obligation there, he says.
Nav-it is now considering informing more government officials and Nav managers in municipalities.
– The reports will be based on deprivation of liberty, misunderstanding of the service and withholding of information, says Halseth.
Divorce in 2010?
The Supreme Court has asked the EFTA Court for answers to a total of 16 questions. Among the most important is whether Norway has broken the rules even before 2012.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has argued that there is a significant difference in the legal situation before and after June 1, 2012, and that the new EU social security rules cannot be compared with the old ones.
Both the EU Commission, a majority in the committee that has investigated the Nav scandal, and various legal experts, on the other hand, believe that the misinterpretation dates back to 1994, when Norway joined the EEA.
The decision of the EFTA Court is expected for the new year.
Sample cloth
As a piece of evidence of EEA law, the EFTA Court must deal with a Nav judgment that has previously made its way to the Supreme Court. A man in his 60s was sentenced to 75 days in prison for gross negligence and gross fraud because he had been in Italy while receiving money for work.
The case is particularly interesting because the action for which the 60-year-old was convicted stretches on both sides of the breaking point in 2012.
