By: Peter Jančič (Spletni časopis)
The government “completely” rejects the dilemma I publicly raised about whether they lost their own decisions, based on which ZPIZ paid pensions for exceptional merits to 136 distinguished citizens or their family members in 2022.
I requested not only the names but also the years in which the government granted these pensions. The government has long refused to provide me with the names and has instead directed me to obtain the missing data from ZPIZ. Their responses have also been unsigned. Even the latest reply, in which they claim they have not lost the documentation – yet again without answering the question – was unsigned.
This is how they responded, without a signature, to my most recent request for the decisions that served as the basis for the 136 recipients of the privilege in 2022:
“Dear Sir/Madam,
We completely reject your insinuations that the government has lost its own documentation or that government decisions must not be accessible to the public. The decisions regarding the granting of exceptional pensions under the Law on Special Recognition and Pension Calculation for Persons with Special Merits (Official Gazette of the SRS, No. 18/74, Official Gazette of the RS, Nos. 14/90 and 34/17 – ZDPIDŠ) are published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia. In accordance with your request, you have been provided with a list of government decisions regarding the awarding of exceptional pensions since 2010.
As has already been explained to you, we do not have information on who – by name – currently receives an exceptional pension (whether it was granted for exceptional merits or is classified as a so-called family pension).
We also reiterate the explanation you have already received from the Ministry of Culture (MK):
‘If the deceased beneficiary was receiving an exceptional pension, that pension is considered as the basis for calculating a survivor’s or family pension under the first indent of the first paragraph of Article 60 of ZPIZ-2 or the third paragraph of Article 392 of ZPIZ-2. If the widow or family member meets the conditions for entitlement to a survivor’s or family pension, the right is granted by an administrative decision. Thus, ZPIZ issues a decision recognising the right to a survivor’s or family pension, with the amount calculated as a percentage of the exceptional pension, depending on the number of family members (Articles 61 and 62 of ZPIZ-2).’”
The government continues to insist that it does not have data on who receives pensions as heirs due to a government decision and does not attempt to obtain this information from ZPIZ, even though that would be the logical step.
I am continuing my efforts to obtain the data.
The public has a right to know. These privileges result from decisions made by the authorities (parliament, government) and not from paid contributions, which are subject to privacy protection and are the responsibility of ZPIZ.
These pensions are not of that nature.
Public awareness is particularly important because the country may be on the verge of a referendum on a new extensive political allocation of pensions to artists. The latest law also does not foresee the inheritance of privileged pensions – just as the 1974 law on exceptional pensions for meritorious individuals did not. That law explicitly stated that the government could decide on allocations to family members, but such decisions had to be published in the Official Gazette. Now, the government claims that it did not decide in the manner prescribed by the law, asserting instead that ZPIZ made these decisions under different legislation. According to the law on exceptional pensions, all decisions must be public, whereas under other laws, they are not.
Because the government has not provided an answer as to who the 136 distinguished recipients of pensions in 2022 were (or whether these pensions were paid to heirs), I initiated a procedure for administrative silence before the Information Commissioner. I received a response yesterday stating that they believe the government has replied, but they cannot assess the content in an appeal regarding administrative silence.
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In reality, the government has not responded at all. All their answers lacked substance – and a signatory. The explanations I received from the Ministry of Culture came from a body that is not competent to make decisions (it is merely one of the ministries that can propose exceptional pensions). In their responses, they partially provided already known data on recipients in recent years (under the governments of Janez Janša and Robert Golob). Only at the very end did they explain that these pensions might have been inherited and that ZPIZ might have decided on this political allocation of pensions – but they failed to provide data on who these pensions were inherited from and who all the recipients were.
