“We maintain our position
that pensions be paid from the place these rights were realised, and that
everything should be in keeping with the European Convention on Human Rights,”
Kosarac told SRNA.
The Serbian Caucus in the BiH House of
Peoples filed a motion with the BiH Constitutional Court for an evaluation of
the harmonisation of the FBiH Pension and Disability Benefit Insurance Law and
its amendments and supplements with the BiH Constitution, feeling that the Law
is discriminatory.
“We feel that the provisions passed by
the Federation are still discriminatory since they only partially remove the
discriminatory foundation. In this regard, we petitioned the BiH Constitutional
Court to evaluate the constitutionality of the Law,” Kosarac said.
He feels that the FBiH by this Law has
only partially removed the source of the discrimination, since it only
partially transferred the right only to persons who have returned to their
pre-war place of residence, while these rights are still denied persons living
in Republika Srpska and other states.
The Serbian members of House of
Peoples demand that the FBiH be ordered to remove the source of discrimination
in the pension law and allow for implementation of the BiH Constitution in the
whole territory of BiH.
The Federal Pension and Disability
Insurance Fund in October last year assumed the obligation to issue pensions to
3,402 pensioners from Srpska who by April 1992 had earned their pensions in the
territory of the FBiH and who returned to their pre-war place of residence
(FBiH), and had received their pensions from the Republika Srpska Pension and
Disability Insurance Fund for years. The Republika Srpska Pension and
Disability Insurance Fund (PIO) is still paying pensions to some 23,500
pensioners who earned their pensions in the FBiH and now live in Srpska.
Due to the damage done to the Srpska
Pension Fund, which has reached some KM 545 million over the years, the
Republika Srpska PIO filed a lawsuit against its federal counterpart with the
European Court of Human Rights.
(Srna/Frontal)
