site.btaRepressed Persons Can Purchase Up to Three Years of Unvested Pensionable Service, Parliament Votes

During Parliament's regular sitting here on Thursday, MPs passed at first and second reading amendments to the Social Security Code, which provide for repressed persons who have been in prisons, labour dormitories, camps, and detention facilities to have the option to purchase up to three years of unvested pensionable service with pay. The same service will also be available to people over the age of 16 who have spent time into internal exile.

In favour voted 115 MPs, 16 voted against and two abstained. 

The bill sponsors reason that with respect to persons covered by the Political and Civil Rehabilitation of Repressed Persons Act, the provisions of the Social Security Code do not allow for the purchase of unreached years of pensionable service, which is inconsistent with the principles of equal treatment enshrined in state social insurance.

The amendments affect an increase in newly granted pensions by 200 people on average per year.

A dispute arose in the plenary after Sevim Ali MP of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms proposed to have both readings take place on Thursday, which was approved by the majority. This was followed by backlash from the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), There Is Such a People and Vazrazhdane.

BSP's Georgi Gyokov stated that subjecting a bill to two readings in one sitting, even though MPs expressed a desire to make proposals between the readings, is killing parliamentarism. Gyokov also said that the amendments have not gone through the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation, which is mandatory.