17/12/2013 13:27
Parliamentary factions to stage march against pension reform
Four political forces represented in Armenia’s National Assembly – Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), ARF-Dashnaktsutyun, Armenian National Congress (HAK), and Heritage Party will stage a march to the Constitutional Court of Armenia where they will read aloud a statement against the introduction of a compulsory accumulative pension system in Armenia. The march is scheduled for today.
Yesterday these parliamentary factions handed a statement to the speaker Hovik Abrahamian who was to file it to the Constitutional Court within 48 hours. The factions initiated a signature campaign against the compulsory pension system’s introduction in order to apply to the Constitutional Court.
The introduction of a compulsory accumulative pension system is stipulated by the Law on Accumulative Pensions passed by the National Assembly in 2010. The voluntary component of the accumulative system has been used in Armenia since 2011, while the compulsory component will be introduced on January 1, 2014. Under the new law, citizens born after 1974 have to pay 5% of their salaries to special accumulative funds, another 5% will be paid by the state.
Opponents of the new pension system say that its compulsory character violates citizens’ rights and contradicts the Armenian Constitution.
On the initiative of ARFD, HAK, BHK and Heritage faction, a special session of the Armenian parliament was convened on November 15 to discuss the postponement of the compulsory component’s introduction for a year. The session did not take place due to lack of a quorum.