make preferableYEREVAN. – The “I am against” civil movement’s “conquest of rights” march on Thursday, and against the mandatory cumulative pensions in Armenia, arrived in capital city Yerevan Municipality building.
The participants in the march called upon the city hall employees not to permit their superiors to deduce the mandatory pension payment from their salaries.
The demonstrators also urged the Municipality workers and all local government agencies to organize themselves against the unlawfulness.
In addition, the protestors informed that their next step will be to stage regional protests.
“This will become a nationwide and a republic-wide movement. We will demand an end to this unconstitutional law. The movement will gather a greater momentum. We have come out of the climate of apathy,” the “I am against” movement members stated, in particular.
The new cumulative pension plan, which formally came into force in Armenia on January 1, 2014, is mandatory for those born in and after 1974 and voluntary for those born before 1974. In line with this plan, 5 to 10 percent of the monthly salaries in Armenia will be deducted and mandatorily be allocated to cumulative pension funds; the latter will be reimbursed as pensions once a person turns 63 years old.
On January 24, however, the Constitutional Court decided to suspend the execution of the some components of the Law on Cumulative Pensions pending the hearing of the petition submitted by the four non-ruling-coalition parliamentary forces—specifically, the Armenian National Congress, Prosperous Armenia, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, and Heritage—, and into the constitutionality of the several articles of the law.
Notwithstanding this, some companies already are deducing the mandatory pension payment from the salaries of their employees.
Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am
