Civilnet
On April 2, certain provisions of the law on the “Accumulative Pension System,” which were being considered by the Constitutional Court, were deemed unconstitutional. Constitutional Court president Gagik Harutyunyan published a 64-page decision on the pension law.
According to the decision, the National Assembly and the Government of Armenia were given a deadline of September 30, 2014 to change certain provisions of the pension law. The articles and clauses of the law will therefore remain in force until September 30, 2014 unless the National Assembly amends the law before that date. Moreover, all pension payments already paid into the system must be reviewed.
Members of the civic initiative “I am against it” gathered in front of the Constitutional Court starting at 11am this morning. The Constitutional Court heard oral arguments on March 28 and 31 and deliberated in a closed-door meeting afterwards.
The four parliamentary opposition factions - Prosperous Armenia, Armenian National Congress, ARF Dashnaktsutyun and Heritage - had applied to the Court on December 17, 2013 to challenge the constitutionality of Articles 5, 7, 8, 37, 38, 45, 49 and 86 of the pension law. On January 24, the Constitutional Court had suspended Articles 76 and 86.3 of the law until March 28.
According to the controversial pension law, citizens born after 1974 would be incorporated into the new pension plan - participation in the plan was mandatory. Participants were to accumulate their pension in a pension fund which was to be managed through designated fund administrators. Those citizens who earned a salary less than 500,000 AMD were to accumulate their pension with a 5 percent deduction of their salary. The government in turn would transfer another five percent into the fund. For those citizens who earned a salary greater than 500,000 AMD, the government would transfer a maximum of 25,000 AMD. If there was a shortfall in reaching the 5 percent threshold, then the remainder would be further deducted from the employee’s wages. The monthly accumulation cap (combined government and citizen contribution) for those in the higher wage categories was 10% of the citizen’s monthly salary.
Protests were organized on February 10 against the mandatory pension wage deductions by workers of the South Caucasus Railway and of the Alexander Spendiaryan National Opera and Ballet Academy Theater. On February 12 protests were organized by employees of the Karen Demirchyan Yerevan Metropolitan Subway System, on February 13 by the employees of the Electric Networks of Armenia, and on February 19 by the employees of Armenia’s Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant.
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