By Constantinos Psillides
Civil servants called out of retirement to serve in a different position should get both their salary and their pension from the previous post, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.
The court was handing down a verdict on an appeal filed by 49 former and current public sector and semi-governmental officials who had been denied their pension while they were drawing a salary. However, the Supreme Court concluded that an article of the State Officials on Pensions Act of 2011 is unconstitutional.
The legislation, drafted by the House of Representatives came as a response to the fact that government officials were receiving multiple pensions as a result of having served in multiple posts in their career.
The House decided then to reform the pension system when it came to high ranking government officials, and significantly cutting back on the amount paid out.
While the core of the legislation still stands, the article in question dictated that no government official should receive a pension while being employed by the state.
The Supreme Court pointed out that the article directly violates article 23 of the Constitution, which protects private property. The court concluded that a pension should be considered as property and as such comes under the protection of article 23 of the constitution.
The court said that while private property laws can be suspended when it comes to the common interest, the state did not sufficiently prove that this is the case.
The government will now have to retroactively pay all pensioners on their payroll, whose pension was suspended as a result of the 2011 act.
The court decision was not unanimous. A seven judge majority decided to strike down the article while two said the appeals should be denied on the grounds of the common interest. The two judges argued that suspending pensions for government employees fell within the scope of reforming the pension system and as such was crucial for the public.
The 2011 act stipulated that the total pension payout amount cannot exceed half the pensionable earnings for any of the pensions concerned.
Previously, supposing someone had held two different positions as a state official and in addition served in the civil service, the first two pensions would be offset against each other, but the third pension (for the civil service) would be paid on top of these two, in full.
The court stance on the subject – considering pension as property – does not bode well for the government since a number of former government officials – including former Central Bank Governor Afxentis Afxentiou – are currently challenging the law in its entirety. A Supreme Court decision favouring the former government officials would result in millions having to be paid back retroactively.
