Pension deductions

Dr. Yousef Mohammed
After the success of our lawsuit in the Federal Supreme Court No. (212 / Federal / 2022) and the court decision on equalizing the salaries of all pensioners with Iraqi pensioners and the implementation of the amended pension law No. (9) of Enforcement of the Federal Court’s decision.
One of the problems in the implementation of Law No. (9) of 2014, the lack of a pension fund in the Kurdistan Region, although recently decided to create the fund, but due to the lack of this fund in the past?
These days, the issue of pension deduction of (3%) of the salaries of the Kurdistan Regional Government employees for all years after (1/ 1/ 2014) was raised, allegedly at the request of the federal government.
After investigating this method of deduction and as stated in the letter, it appears that the deduction has nothing to do with the federal government, but at the request of the regional authorities. However, even if it is at the request of the federal government, it is an unjust demand, legally wrong and at the same time a great oppression of the employees and pensioners of the region because of the following points:
1. It is true that by implementing Law No. 9 of 2014, according to Article 17/1 of the law, the pension deduction should be changed from 7% to 10%, but where is the 7% that was previously deducted from employees’ salaries? According to the same article, the participation of the general treasury in the pension deduction should be 15%. Why hasn’t this been mentioned and this has not been made a debt to the KRG?
2. The letter does not mention that this money will be deducted from the salaries of employees and pensioners in the coming months, where will it go!? According to the Pension Law, the pension deduction from the employee and the state, which is 25% of the employee’s basic salary, becomes income for the pension fund. Is it like all the previous pension deductions of the Kurdistan Regional Government employees will be lost and no one knows what will happen!? What are they doing to link the pension deductions of the Kurdistan Regional Government employees to the Iraqi Pension Fund!?
3. Now that the pension deduction according to the Unified Pension Law is deducted as a debt, what about all the employees who retired since January 1, 2014 and deserved a higher pension according to that law, or those who retired before 2014? 2014 to amend their salaries, will they be compensated for all that period and their salaries will be equal to the law!?
4. From a legal point of view, according to Article 37/1 of the Rules of Procedure of the Federal Supreme Court No. 1 of 2022, the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court shall come into force from the date of their issuance. Decision (212/Federal/2022) regarding the pensioners of the Kurdistan Region and obliging the Kurdistan Regional Authorities to implement the amended law number (9) of 2014, was issued on (23/11/2022). That is, from that date, the law applies to pensions, including pension deductions and salaries.
That is, from that date, the pension deduction of employees and the state should be made as the applicable law, and the salaries of all pensioners should be equalized from that date, not amended but not equalized! If the Kurdistan Regional Government wants to implement the pension law in force since 2014 with retroactive effect, they must implement everything, not just pension deductions!
5. Everyone knows that the Kurdistan Regional Government owes tens of millions of dinars to all employees, pensioners and other salaried workers in the past 10 years. According to Article 13 of the reform law, the Ministry of Finance should have counted all the savings and deductions made in the salaries and put them on an account, so that the salaried employees can benefit from it. Well, due to forced “savings” and “deductions”, the salaries of some months of employees have not been paid, so how do they want to cut the pension deduction from a salary that has not been paid!? The debt of the employees and pensioners of the past three years should be placed on the authorities of the region, which owes hundreds of times the pension deduction of the employees of the region.
Finally, it is surprising how the Kurdistan Regional Government authorities thought about the difference in pension deductions, but did not think about their share of the deduction or did not think about equalizing the salaries of pensioners since then!? Or how could they not think about all the salaries that they have not paid to the salaried employees, or think about all the other deductions that are being cut from the regional employees due to the illegal suspension of promotions? They know that they are deductible, but they are not willing to fulfill their duties and responsibilities.
Therefore, the decree is illegal and must be cancelled, otherwise employees and pensioners can appeal to the Administrative Court.