I’m against’ initiative: Struggle against new pension scheme to go on

Armenia’s Constitutional Court has suspended two provisions of the Law on Accumulative Pensions –parts 3 of Articles 76 and 86 and the issue of the ‘compulsory’ component still remains, member of ‘I am against compulsory accumulative pension system’ – ‘Dem.am’) civil initiative David Manukian told a press conference today.

The civil initiative members said that the Constitutional Court’s decision cannot be considered a victory so they have no intention of retreating and if the decision to be taken by the Constitutional Court on March 28 does not satisfy them, they will use tougher methods of struggle.

The compulsory accumulative pension system was introduced in Armenia on January 1, 2014. Under the new Law on Accumulative Pensions, citizen born after 1974 will have to pay 5% of their salaries to special accumulative funds, and another 5% will be paid by the state.

The opponents of the new pension system say that its compulsory character violates citizens’ rights and contradicts the Constitution.

Four factions of the Armenian parliament – Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), ARFD, Armenian National Congress (HAK), and Heritage factions oppose the introduction of the compulsory accumulative component and applied to the Constitutional Court asking it to recognize the new law as anti-constitutional.