Shura passes new retirement law
The majority of Shura Council members yesterday voted for the controversial new retirement law, which sparked an outrage among some citizens who believed it would possibly harm their retirement privileges.
The voting process was done in an extraordinary session held to discuss, review and vote on the draft law, a week after it was rejected by the Council of Representatives.
Thirty-two out of the 37 attending council members voted in favour of the new law, while three rejected it and two refrained from voting.
The disagreement on the legislation among the two chambers of the Legislative Authority, Shura and Representatives Councils, means that both councils, aka National Assembly, will convene to collectively discuss and vote on the law.
As recently reported on Tribune, the new legislation gives the Social Insurance Organisation (SIO) absolute jurisdictions to determine pensions’ percentages, retirement age, pensions increment and other powers related to the regulation of retirement and pensions of the employees of the public and military sectors, as well as members of the Legislative Authority and municipal councils.
The controversial law was approved by Shura Council’s Committee on Sunday. During yesterday’s session, Committee Head Jihad Fadhel stressed that “the new law comes to correct the retirement and pensions system”, affirming that “it will not harm citizens’ retirement rights”.
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