Constitutional Tribunal annuls Metal Workers' and Miners' pension funds

SD. The Constitutional Tribunal (TC) annulled the National Pension and Retirement Fund of Metalworkers, of Metallurgy and Mining, which contemplates the specialization and retention by the companies of one half of one percent, applied also to all of the mines and metallurgical industries and the like, as well as their workers.

The high court considered that the system violates the principles of equality, legality, justice and tax fairness.

By means of sentence TC/0190/13, the court declared that articles 2,3,4,5 and 6 of the Law 374-98 are unconstitutional, because they establish a system of double contribution for the employers and workers of the metalworking, metallurgical and mining sector.

The Court ordered the financial intermediaries to freeze the financial and economic assets belonging to the National Pension and Retirement Fund of the Metalworkers until these are intervened by the National Council of Social Security, the Superintendent of Pensions and the Treasury of Social Security.

They ordered that these entities should determine the final disposition of the economic assets that have been contributed to the Fund by the employers and workers of this sector, as well as to complete the administrative and legalization processes to determine its dissolution. The high court accepted three direct lawsuits of unconstitutionality filed by the Association of Industries of the Dominican Republic in court papers deposited on 6 November 1998 and 5 August 1999.

The case establishes that coexisting at the present time, employers and workers of the productive sector of Metalworking, Metallurgy and Mining are facing the demand for contributing to the Dominican System of Social Security, which has a universal character that is applicable to all those administrated and at the same time they should also contribute according to Law 374-98 which institutes the National Pension and Retirement Fund of the Metalworkers, Metallurgy Industry and Miners is causing this category of workers and employers the obligation of contributing the same type of para-fiscal contributions to two different entities, violating not only the principle of equal taxation, but also equal legality, justice and fairness, ordered in article 243 of the Constitution.

The TC warned that the dispositions of Law 374-98 have created a general system of contributions for pensions and retirements of an exclusive and unequal character, for the support of which all workers should give their contributions. Especially since the unionized workers are the sole beneficiaries of the system, establishing a system of assistance for elderly, handicapped and survivors that only benefits one category of workers of the area mentioned and leaves others without protection. The sentence had two votes reserved and on dissenting vote.