Armenian president signs amendments to Law on Accumulative Pensions

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan signed the parliament-adopted amendments to the Law on Accumulative Pensions, the presidential press service reported.

We would remind you that on May 15 the Armenian parliament – by a vote of 67 to 18, with 29 abstentions – passed the government-submitted draft law on amendments to the Law on Accumulative Pensions. According to the amendments, the law’s Article 76 envisaging responsibility for non-payment of compulsory pension contributions has been invalidated. The law now has retroactive force and the mentioned provision applies to the whole period of time since January 1. Besides, under the amendments, an employee shall not pay pension contributions if he/she files a written or electronic application about it to the employer.

Four factions of the Armenian parliament – Prosperous Armenia, ARFD, Armenian National Congress, and Heritage factions – earlier opposed the introduction of the compulsory accumulative pension component in Armenia and asked the Constitutional Court of Armenia (CC) to declare the new law unconstitutional.

On January 24, 2014, the CC suspended two clauses of the Law on Accumulative Pensions – points 3 of Articles 76 and 86 - pending a court decision. On April 2 the CC published it 64-page decision, by which a number of articles of the law were recognized as contradicting the Constitution of Armenia and null and void.