2023-04-19 15:30:00
Last Friday, April 14, the Constitutional Council admitted that the pension reform passes through a draft law on the amending financing of social security, in an accelerated procedure and without a vote of Parliament. Only a few measures issued by the senatorial right have been censored. The Council also rejected one of the two shared initiative referendum proposals (RIP) presented by NUPES.
A few journalists were allowed to learn about the decision at a press conference, which was held without a microphone or camera.
Procedural enforcement is constitutional
The legal retirement age is now raised to 64 years, and the contribution period will be 43 years from 2027. The reform project, however, included serious complaints of unconstitutionality, starting with the procedure used to do so. adopt. The Council has taken note of the “unusual character” of the latter, but did not censor it.
Apart from the use of the famous article 49.3, the government has cumulatively deployed all the weapons placed at its disposal by the Constitution to reduce parliamentary debate. In particular, he drew up article 47.1, which had never been used since 1958. Thus, the text could be sent to the Senate empty of the amendments proposed by the deputies of the National Assembly. Once the text arrived in the upper house, the executive activated article 44.3. He was therefore able to block the vote of the senators on the only amendments he chose to retain.
This procedural sequence was made possible by the following setback: the pension reform was included in a bill for the amending financing of Social Security. Again, the Constitutional Council found nothing wrong with it.
Pension reform has its place in a financing law, but not social improvements
However, the project dealt with the fundamental principles of the future pension system, and not with budgetary questions. Removing social schemes and fixing the minimum legal retirement age apparently fell within the domain of the so-called law ” ordinary “ rather than funding issues, but not for the Constitutional Council.
On the other hand, the Council considered that the amendments of senators chosen by the government had nothing to do in such a law. So that all the proposals of the senatorial right accepted by the majority will have to be rediscussed in Parliament within the framework of another law. These are significant improvements to the system, which concern the senior index, the senior CDI, certain methods of recovering social security contributions, the early departure of several categories of civil servants or even certain hardship criteria.
With regard to the debates around a finance law, the Constitutional Council is usually attentive to another criterion which is self-evident: its budgeting!
However, the government has not provided a precise impact study as to the financial motivations of the reform, justifying itself sometimes by a need to rebalance the pension system, sometimes by the need to free up funds to ensure the ecological transition. . These inaccuracies, however, did not constitute “substantial attacks on the sincerity of parliamentary debate” in the eyes of « Sages ».
A first RIP request rejected
Finally, the nine councilors rejected a request to organize a referendum of shared initiative (RIP). The NUPES had seized it in order to affirm that the legal age of retirement could not exceed 62 years.
This request collected the necessary number of signatures and its object corresponded to the criteria set by article 11 of the Constitution. Nevertheless, “on the date of registration of the referral, the bill aimed at affirming that the legal retirement age cannot be set beyond 62 years does not entail any change in the state of the law” .
The institution considered that the question put to them did not constitute a reform, since on the day of the request, namely 20 March, the new law had not entered into force and the retirement age at retirement was still 62 years. It must be deduced from this reasoning that it is therefore impossible for citizens to decide on a future law.
And the height of irony, now that the law was promulgated on the night of April 14 to 15 by the President of the Republic, it is necessary to wait at least a year for a new request for RIP to be admissible!
Nevertheless, a second request for a referendum, more precise this one, had been filed in parallel on April 13, i.e. before the promulgation of the law. The Constitutional Council is due to deliver its opinion on May 3. Will he stay on his position, so difficult to maintain?
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