Any request for a constitutional interpretation on pension reform legislation should focus on the “survival rights” of retired police officers and firefighters, rather than protecting the “legitimate expectations” of all civil servants, the People First Party (PFP) said yesterday, contradicting a rumored Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposal.
“The unreasonable portion of pension reform legislation is that what has been stipulated for firefighters, police officers, nurses and doctors should be different from ordinary civil servants, because they perform dangerous work,” PFP caucus whip Lee Hong-chun (李鴻鈞) said.
Retired police officers and firefighters are in a situation similar to retired military personnel and should be granted a reprieve from pension cuts until their situation is addressed alongside pension reform for military veterans, Lee said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Only the PFP caucus’ three lawmakers have signed a petition to seek a constitutional interpretation on pension reform.
More than a third of the lawmakers — at least 38 — must sign the petition before it can be submitted to the Council of Grand Justices.
A legal fight has erupted following the passage late last month of the Act Governing the Retirement and Pensions of Public-School Teachers and Employees (公立學校教職員退休撫卹條例), with opponents vowing to launch an administrative appeal against the legislation after it takes affect and lobbying lawmakers and Control Yuan members to request a constitutional interpretation from the grand justices.
If the KMT fails to garner the support of pan-green camp lawmakers, it will need all three PFP legislators and Non-partisan Solidarity Union Legislator May Chin (高金素梅), who caucuses with the KMT, to support its petition for a constitutional interpretation.
“I have not seen the KMT’s final version,” Lee said, calling on the KMT to present the PFP a signed version its petition, even as other parties appeared to rule out supporting a petition protecting civil servants’ “legitimate expectations.”
Alleged violations of government employees’ “legitimate expectations” are key to most proposed legal challenges to pension reform.
“We believe the government should keep its promises to civil servants and teachers, but ‘legitimate expectations’ should not be protected to the point of bankrupting the nation — the public interest still has to be weighed,” PFP Culture and Publicity Department director Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) said, referring to the council’s Constitutional Interpretation No. 717, which found the reductions to pensioners’ preferential savings accounts constitutional on the grounds of the public interest.
However, the severity of cuts faced by police officers and firefighters violate portions of the decision affirming pensioners’ right to “survival” and “dignity,” she said, adding that police officers’ pensions should not be calculated according to the base salary replacement ratios of civil service employees.
“Because the nature of their work necessitates relatively early retirement, they cannot accumulate 35 years of seniority like other civil servants, keeping them from getting the higher replacement ratios,” Huang said. “They already had a natural ceiling on pension levels before reform, and their average earning are in the middle of the pension ‘floor.’”
The act sets a minimum pension of NT$ 32,160 for civil servants, including police and firefighters.
PFP Legislator Chen Yi-chieh (陳怡潔) said differences in compensation formulas mean that the pension floor would not threaten the “survival” and “dignity” of ordinary civil servants as much as police and firefighters.
While civil servants and police are paid similar amounts, base salaries for police are extremely low, forcing them to rely heavily on overtime and special subsidies, which are excluded from replacement ratio calculations, Chen said.
The PFP’s stance drew criticism from National Civil Servant Association president Harry Lee (李來希), who said campaigners are planning to rally on Tuesday next week to request the Control Yuan ask for a constitutional interpretation on pension reform.
“The issue with police and firefighters is not constitutionality — it is whether the legislation is appropriate. The issue is whether ‘retroactive application’ of pension reforms is unconstitutional,” he said, adding that Constitutional Interpretation No. 717 should be narrowly applied.
“That ruling was focused on a question about the preferential savings accounts, but the impact of this round of pension reform is much larger, and public interests considerations should not be limitless,” he said.
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