The German pension fund carefully examines all circumstances of employment in the country of origin and calculates the pension for foreign work periods in accordance with the actual facts of the case.
Now some late resettlers under §4 BVFG from Kazakhstan are receiving pension decisions reducing their pension for Kazakh work periods. The deductions amount to 2-4 pension points, which in monetary terms is many tens of euros per month. For the rest of their lives, the late resettler will sorely miss the deducted portion of their pension for their own support. The German pension fund explains the reduction decision as follows: it turns out that before leaving for Germany, the late resettler received compensation payments from the Kazakh pension fund for waiving the Kazakh pension they had earned. This compensation deprives the resettler of claims to a future Kazakh pension.
The late resettler was not particularly upset to learn that in exchange for a not very large cash payment, he lost at least part of his earned pension claims against the Kazakh pension fund. After all, Germany would pay him an old-age pension in a significantly larger amount than the Pension Fund of Kazakhstan. And he would use the monetary compensation he received to cover travel expenses for resettlement to Germany.
Already in Germany, he learns with surprise that the German pension fund does not credit the Kazakh work periods for which pension compensation was paid. For that period, there are no insurance contributions to the Kazakh pension fund, therefore no pension service was earned, the German fund believes. The German fund transfers this gap in Kazakh work periods into the calculation of the late resettler's German pension for foreign work periods. The result is the deduction of those very pension points.
This deduction does not contradict the letter of the law on pensions for foreign work periods. There is no period of contribution payments, so there is no pension service within the meaning of pension legislation.
In reality, it's a different story. The Kazakh compensation amounts to a couple of thousand euros, sometimes much less than one thousand euros. The loss of part of the German pension will quickly cover the Kazakh payment, then continuous losses begin – and so on until the end of life. The pension losses can reach 850 euros per year or more. Over the entire period of receiving the pension, a substantial sum accumulates that cannot be compared with the one-time Kazakh pension payment of 750 euros. On average, 15,000 euros are exchanged for 750 euros.
The ratio of the received Kazakh payment to the total German pension losses is not reasonable and is simply ridiculous. Moreover, one must also take into account inflation losses and future pension increases. For clarification: the monetary value of one pension point is determined annually by a decision of the federal government. To date, this value has known only one trend – upward growth. Under the current situation, German pensioners are supposed to benefit from the increase in the country's general prosperity. The deducted pension points do not participate in this general increase in prosperity. That is unfair.
Here the constitutional principle of proportionality is violated. The principle of proportionality is so important in the German legal system and in defining the concept of justice that it has been granted constitutional status. Specific laws belong to ordinary legislation; they must not contradict the country's constitution. If any provision of ordinary legislation contradicts constitutional principles and general notions of justice, a parliamentary or judicial correction of existing legislation must be carried out.
Affected by the unfair reduction of pension points due to the payment of pension compensation, late resettlers from Kazakhstan can appeal the pension decision in the manner prescribed by law. It is important to meet the deadline for filing their disagreement with the pension fund's decision to reduce the number of pension points. Social legislation allows filing protests and demanding restoration of justice even for expired decisions. Filing applications for expired decisions of the fund has a number of features that I will not dwell on in this article. It is only important to know that an expired and uncontested decision is not final, so the case can be reopened.
Thomas PUE,
German lawyer.