The Union of Free Trade Unions of Montenegro (USSCG) requests that the Constitutional Court use the possibility from the Law on the Constitutional Court and its Rules of Procedure, and that before sending the decision repealing the article of the Law on Pension Insurance, it should reconsider this issue and organize a public debate on it, the Secretary General announced today of this trade union headquarters, Srđa Keković.
On Thursday last week, the Constitutional Court abolished the article of the law according to which the right to old-age pensions is acquired when the insured man reaches the age of 66 and the woman reaches the age of 64 and at least 15 years of insurance experience, so that now the only condition for obtaining a pension remains the full 40 years insurance experience. The justification for this decision was the alleged discrimination against men.
On Thursday, the Constitutional Court published only the statement from the session, and did not publish only the decision with an explanation. In current practice, the writing of such a decision takes three to four months, before it is published in the Official Gazette. Until the publication of the decision in the Official Gazette, the challenged article of the law is still valid.
Keković said that the Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court allow room for reconsideration of the decision before its, as it is legally called, uploading it to the Official Gazette.
"This is possible, as stated, 'if new knowledge or facts have come to light that are of essential importance for the protection of constitutionality and legality and have an impact on the regularity of decision-making.' it renders meaningless other articles of the law that refer to it, as well as that its repeal has resulted in a collision with the Labor Law, due to which a huge number of citizens will suffer great damage," Keković said.
He stated that he will send this initiative to the Constitutional Court tomorrow, as well as that they expect the support of the public and other institutions.
"However, due to the importance of this issue and the impact on thousands of citizens, we will not wait indefinitely for the Constitutional Court's answer on whether it will withdraw this decision for a new decision and organize a public debate on it. We are already planning the next actions. We will contact the parliamentary clubs as well as the relevant ministry of the new government, so that in the event that the Constitutional Court rejects our initiative and sends such a decision to the Official Gazette, they would immediately react by adopting amendments to the Law on the PIO Fund in order to return this norm to the legal system," Keković said.
The initiative for the Constitutional Court to assess the legality of the disputed article was submitted in October 2020 by the Association of Judges of Montenegro.
Keković said that the Association of Judges sent this initiative due to the disputed interpretation of the article of the Constitution that the judge's function ends on the day of fulfilling the conditions for old-age pension.
"We reacted then and since then we have been leading a campaign to prove that the repeal of this article of the law would be wrong and cause harm to a large number of citizens. We believe that the interpretations that female judges must retire at 64 and male judges at 66, in connection with this law was not correct, and that the solution to the problem should have been sought through amending the article of the Constitution that refers to judicial functions, and not by abolishing the article of the law that does not only apply to judges but also to all citizens of Montenegro, Keković said.
He also stated that he does not want to believe that when deciding on this decision there was also a personal interest in order for certain judges to extend their mandate, to the detriment of thousands of other workers.
Deputy Secretary General Ivana Mihajlović said that men were not discriminated against because women could exercise their right to retire at the age of 64, as this was an affirmative action allowed and recommended by the European Court of Human Rights.
"This article of the law gives the possibility for women to exercise that right if they wish, but it is not binding. It exists in our law, as well as in the laws of other countries, precisely because women find it more difficult to find a job, because they are left without years of insurance due to maternity. With this norm, he wanted to correct such a status, so that women would not suffer - it was not a privileged position," said Mihajlović.
She reminded that this article of the law was changed when it was appropriate for political reasons, to send certain persons to early retirement, and that the Constitutional Court did not recognize other real discrimination because employees in the private sector have to go on old-age pension from the age of 66. years of age, while employees in the public sector can work until the age of 67 if they wish.
"Now, after this decision of the Constitutional Court, we have situations where someone who reaches the age of 66 has to receive a termination of employment and at the same time cannot retire because he does not have 40 years of insurance experience. We are talking about thousands of people whose existence will be threatened." said Mihajlović.
President of the Main Board of the USS and president of the branch trade union of education, Jovan Drašković, pointed out the additional problem for the homeless in that area created by the repeal of this article.
"Employed in education, the years of insurance tenure depend on the norm. For example, if he works at 50 percent of the norm, that year is counted as 50 percent of his insurance tenure. If someone works for 40 years at half the norm, he has 20 years of insurance tenure. If it were to remain like this the situation created by the decision of the Constitutional Court, a huge number of educators would not even be able to retire," said Drašković.
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