Hungary’s Constitutional Court failed to take a decision on the transfer of private pension funds to the state at a debate on Tuesday, the court’s press chief Andras Sereg told MTI. From September 1, the court will get five more judges – all of them candidates of Fidesz - , elected by Parliament in June.
Hungarian private pension fund members had until the end of January to opt out of a move, together with their pension assets, to the state pension pillar. About 97 percent of private pension fund members decided to return to the state pillar and their assets were transferred to the state in June. Those who returned were paid any yield on their assets over the rate of inflation. Julianna Baba, who heads pension fund association Stabilitas, said earlier that it would be difficult to re-establish private pension fund membership after the real yields were paid out. It would have been most fortunate if the court could have taken a decision before the pension assets were transferred, she added. The real yields are being paid out at present.
Hungary’s main opposition Socialist party will go to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if Hungary’s top court fails to overrule a law stripping people who did not return to the state system from private funds of their state pensions. Lajos Korózs, a Socialist politician, told a news conference the Constitutional Court was expected to either fully scrap the law or annul parts of it, allowing 100,000 people who chose to stay with the private pension funds to receive state pensions. If the court “whitewashes” the issue, however, the Socialists will launch an appeal in Strasbourg, Korózs said.
Source: MTI