Convicts will receive pensions

The detainees from penitentiaries will benefit from pensions. Under the legislative amendments passed by the Parliament in first reading, pensions will be fixed and paid to the convicts that have not received one earlier, Info-Prim Neo reports. The prisoners had been entitled to pensions in April 2007 following amendments to the law on state social insurance pensions. But given the lack of legislative mechanisms, the convicts could not yet take their pensions. The law on the state social insurance pensions was supplemented with a paragraph which says that in order to fix pensions for the prisoners that have not received one earlier, the penitentiary’s administration shall collect the necessary documents and the applications for pensions filed by convicts, shall authenticate prisoners’ signatures on the application and send the set of documents to the zonal social insurance agency within five days. The phrase “tariff salary for the first wage category” from the law will be replaced with the phrase “minimum salary in the country”, with reference to the calculation basis for non-contributive periods such as the military service and the period of taking care of a child until the age of three. The MPs argued that such a measure is necessary because these periods usually precede the beginning of professional activity and it is practically impossible to determine what category of salary earners a given person refers to. Another amendment says that the foreigners and stateless persons will pay state social insurance contributions alongside the Moldovan citizens. The Ministry of Social Protection, Family and Child, which proposed the legislative amendments, says that the measure is aimed at preventing, limiting or removing the social risks stipulated in the law, to which this category of persons is exposed.