In an incident that very much resembles a ‘David vs Goliath’ scenario, a makcik has won a legal lawsuit against the Malaysian government concerning the pensions of retirees.
Who is she? She’s Aminah Ahmad, a retired civil servant who successfully argued in court that changes to the Pension Adjustment Act was in violation of pensioners’ rights as outlined in the Federal Constitution, reported Harian Metro.
Filed lawsuit over payment of pensions
According to the Malay daily, the case was largely revolved around the Pension Adjustment Act, where, before 2013, pensions were adjusted based on economic changes and salary revisions, which meant retirees’ pensions increased whenever civil servants had a pay raise — usually every five years.
However, amendments to the Act were made, where a fixed 2% annual pension increase was introduced.
Following the amendments, Aminah, who formerly worked as a Wisma Putra officer, and 56 civil service retirees filed a lawsuit against the government, where they claimed it was in violation of Article 147 of the Federal Constitution, which shields pensioners from unfair reductions in their pension rights.
Court orders govt to pay RM1.7bil to pensioners
The case soon made its way to the Federal Court, where it was ruled that changes made to the Pension Adjustment Act was unconstitutional.
Following the court’s ruling, Aminah filed another lawsuit demanding the government to recalculate pension payments based on the previous rules which were implemented since 2013.
On that front, the High Court ruled that the government has to pay around RM1.7 billion in backdated pension adjustments to 531,976Â retirees affected by the amendments.
While the government conceded that it had the financial means to pay out the RM1.7 billion, FMT reported that it has since applied for a stay on the decision pending appeal, with director-general of public service Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz saying:
These public funds had already been earmarked for development, pension payment, investment and savings previously.
“It must be managed well and we must adhere to the finance ministry’s advice so as not to affect the nation’s interests.”
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