Police officers and soldiers get their due, Law on PIO amended

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - The House of Representatives of the Federal Parliament tonight adopted at a session under urgent procedure the Proposal for amendments to the Law on Pension and Disability Insurance in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

As a reason for the amendments, the Government also cited the Decision of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and measures and activities were undertaken with the aim of harmonizing the provisions of this law with other relevant legal regulations.

According to today's address to the deputies by the Federal Minister of Labor and Social Policy, Vesko Drljača, one of the amendments further clarified the norm so that police officers at the state level, in terms of retirement and the method of calculating pensions, would be equalized with police officers at the level of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This enabled equal treatment of all police officers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, given that those residing in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina pay PIO contributions under equal conditions.

Furthermore, by amending Article 44, paragraph (5), members of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina were brought into an equal position with other insured persons, so that their personal points for each year of special service, instead of 0.5, now amount to 1.00 for a recognized full year of special service, the minister also explained.

According to the new legal solution, an injury at work is also considered one sustained during preparations for defense, i.e., during the defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period from September 18, 1991, to December 23, 1995.

It is also noted that the Government of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, at a session held on December 12, 2019, tasked the Federal PIO Institute to implement the opinion of the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Policy of December 11, 2019. That opinion states that in procedures for recognizing the right to a family pension for widows of martyrs or fallen defenders and widowers of female martyrs or fallen female defenders, it is necessary to apply the provision of Article 17 of the Law on PIO. This provision, among other things, prescribes that a person is compulsorily insured for the case of disability and death due to injury at work and occupational disease, during the performance of certain public functions or civic duties at the call of competent authorities and local self-government units.

Among other things, the provision has been supplemented so that an extramarital partner is now also considered a family member of the deceased insured person. An extramarital partner is considered a person defined as such by the Family Law of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and who has established their status in court proceedings.

A novelty in the Law is also the possibility of extraordinary adjustment of pensions (except the highest one) until the lowest pension amount reaches one-fifth of the highest pension amount achieved under the law, but under the condition that the real gross domestic product growth rate in the previous year is greater than three percent and if the budget of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has no accumulated deficit, and at most up to the GDP growth rate in the previous year.