The judges of the Costa Rica’s Constitutional Chamber (Sala Constitucional or Sala Cuarta) didn’t find anything unconstitutional in the project presented to reduce the pensions of the Judiciary Power.

The consultation was made by the Legislative Assembly since November 1, 2017, after the project was approved in first debate in congress. Now, with sentence number 2018-5758, the Constitutional Chamber declared “By majority, the consultation is evacuated with regards to the law project denominated “Ley de Reforma Integral a los Diversos Regímenes de Pensiones y Normativa Conexa”, legislative file number 19,922, the same has no substantial unconstitutional problems”; this allows Congress to vote this law in second debate and with this try to save a pension regimen that is estimated to generate a deficit of over US$9 million.

The conditions offered for retirement through the Judiciary Power are considerably better the conditions offered by the Social Security System (CCSS) which covers the majority of the working population.

This project proposes several changes, such as changing the retirement age from 60 years of age to 65 (same age as those retired through the Social Security Service -CCSS), having 35 years of service, instead of 30, to be able to retire; establishing a limit (currently there is none) of 4 million colones (approx. $7,000.00) for the maximum pension, among others.

“Now we have to continue with the voting of the project, we are very satisfied, this concludes a goal we had established since the very beginning: to affect everything that has to do with luxury pensions, and with this is seems we are finishing this task. This will allow us to give sustainability to the Judiciary Power’s Pension Regimen”, commented deputy Sandra Piszk.