Zeynalian: Sums paid to pension funds should be refunded

5% pension contributions paid from employees’ salaries to compulsory pension funds should be refunded, human rights activist Artak Zeynalian said.

“In accordance with the court decision, all payments will be reviewed. The sums paid to pension funds should be refunded, while the compulsory component shall not be used,” he told journalists.

“Our claim was fully sustained,” he said.

Plaintiff Mary Khachatrian said for her part that the law shall be reviewed in the context of human rights and freedoms.
The Constitutional Court of Armenia today recognized as unconstitutional a number of provisions of the Law on Compulsory Accumulative Pension System.

The CC Chairman Gagik Harutyunian read the court decision saying that the use of the compulsory component restricts the application of a number of articles of the Armenian Constitution, in particular, the protection of the right of property. Besides, the law does not take into account the requirements to ensure the minimum consumer basket.

The decision takes effect upon its publication.

The Constitutional Court of Armenia ruled that the parliament and the government shall bring the law into line with the decision’s requirements by September 30, 2014.

The law took effect on January 1, 2014. It applies to Armenian citizens born after January 1, 1974. Under the law, employees have to pay 5% of their monthly salaries to a pension fund, and the state shall pay another 5%, but no more than 25,000 drams ($61).