STF: Moraes gives ten days for INSS to have a lifelong review plan

The Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) Alexandre de Moraes determined that the National Social Security Institute (INSS) present, in ten days, a plan to carry out the so-called lifetime review of pensions. The deadline starts counting this Friday (3). The lifetime review was authorized in December, when the Supreme Court recognized the right to recalculate retiree benefits, ending decades of legal wrangling. According to the decision, the revision can be requested by retirees and pensioners who started contributing to the INSS before July 1994, the month in which the Real Plan was created, and who retired between 1999 – when the government changed the rules for calculating benefits after carry out a Social Security reform – and the 2019 Social Security reform. The INSS, however, asked the Supreme Court to suspend the progress of judicial proceedings on the matter, as it would not currently have the technical possibilities to recalculate retirements based on the new rule. The municipality estimated that the procedure should involve 51 million active and inactive benefits. One of the difficulties presented was that the current Dataprev systems do not provide for the calculation considering wages prior to July 1994, requiring technological changes to make the procedure feasible. This at a time when the current queue of beneficiaries waiting for social security calculations reaches 5 million people, the agency stressed. Moraes acknowledged the technical difficulties, but stated that the STF’s decision cannot remain without a practical result. “In fact, millions of Social Security beneficiaries have been waiting for years for a response from the Judiciary, in matters related to basic fundamental rights, linked to their own subsistence and the dignity of the human person”, he wrote in the decision. The minister added that “it is necessary that the requesting social security autarchy inform how and within what deadlines it proposes to give effect to the understanding defined” by the STF. Only after receiving and analyzing the plan will it decide on the request for suspension of the proceedings, said Moraes, who is the rapporteur for the appeal in which the matter was judged.

Agência Brasil