Quietly under the radar, the Ministry of Finance introduced an amendment to the Arrangements Law that retroactively denies an addition to the pensions of IDF defense research workers since 2012, in a way that bypassed the court ruling that IDF defense research employees are entitled to this increase retroactively. This is an addition to pensions that reaches NIS 170 million for about 1500,<> pensioners, a large sum that the Ministry of Finance does not want to pay, claiming that this is a double pension update that they should not receive, and there is no reason for them to receive a double pension benefit unlike other IDF pensioners.
The Knesset's legal advisor strongly criticized the Finance Ministry's promotion of a retroactive amendment bypassing a court in the framework of the Arrangements Law, saying: "In the Arrangements Law, you don't make a law that bypasses a ruling. The court ruled in a certain way, you are appealing it, it did not instruct you to amend, it said that if you want it not to be according to a paragraph, the law does not allow you to amend, but not in the Arrangements Law, but in a regular procedure."
The defense research workers are IDF retirees who spent most of their service developing many weapons, including development related to Iron Dome. The discussion and approval of the law took place in the midst of Operation Shield and Arrow in the Labor Committee was expanded.
The Finance Ministry's law was actually born out of a long dispute between the IDF's defense research workers and the Ministry of Finance. The point of contention revolves around linking the pensions of these IDF retirees to updating the salaries of academic research personnel at universities, in addition to linking their pensions to the price index. That means two pension linkages.
In 2000, a collective agreement was signed with the state in which it was determined that the salaries of research workers in the IDF were linked to the salaries of research workers in academia.
In 2011, wages increased, and as a result, the pensions of research workers in academia, but IDF retirees did not receive this benefit, despite the fact that they are entitled to indexation to academic research workers.
In 2012, an amendment to the law was passed, stating that from that year onwards, IDF defense research retirees were not entitled to receive the same indexation to the salaries of academic research workers, but the law did not address the increase already made in 2011 and in fact did not cancel it retroactively.
Since 2011, after they did not receive the 6% benefit increase, a group of IDF retirees of academic research workers filed a lawsuit against the state and won the Labor Court in a ruling handed down in 2012 that ruled that pensioners should receive the pension supplement. The state's appeal against the ruling was rejected, and most recently, in 2021, the IDF's appeals committee, which serves as having legal force, ruled that defense research workers should receive the pension supplement retroactively from 2011 until today.
Despite all these rulings, the Ministry of Finance has refused to give the pension supplement to pensioners to date, claiming that there was an error in the law and they are not entitled to receive two pension indexations, both indexation to the consumer price index and to the ranking of research workers at universities.
In addition, the Ministry of Finance claims that the court allowed them to change the law in the framework of hearings and rulings. However, the justices explicitly warned against retroactive legislation that would harm the property rights of IDF pensioners if they were deprived of their pensions.
In fact, the Ministry of Finance is making this move because it is afraid to pay NIS 170 million to about 1500,60 pensioners who will be harmed by the process, or at least NIS 300 million to the <> pensioners who petitioned the court and won.
MK Naama Lazimi said: "There is a dangerous use here of the Arrangements Law to circumvent the court's ruling. We succeeded in removing this law in the split discussion from the Arrangements Law and passing it separately, after I drove home I discovered that the law was introduced again through a revision in a fire extinguisher in an unacceptable way. Bring this to the committee, not as part of the Arrangements Law, for serious discussion, and not far from the public eye. We are used to the Ministry of Finance not honoring salary agreements, the teachers did not accept the supplement, the interns were promised an arrangement to shorten their turns, and now they are doing this contrary to court rulings, these practices of losing public trust because of this conduct should be condemned. It is dishonest that the committee is being used to circumvent a retirement court ruling. It's illegal."
Eran Yosef, deputy attorney general of the Defense Ministry, said in a Knesset debate: "It was the Defense Ministry that initiated this move. At most, there is a mistake in the wording of the law that causes one group of retirees to receive something that no one else gets. This needs to be passed because if we don't do it now in the Arrangements Law, people will get something they don't deserve." Gal Asahel of the MAG Corps added: "This is not a retroactive decision because it is not a proprietary right of the pensioners."
Shai Somekh, from the Justice Ministry, explained: "The court interpreted the current situation and the legislature refers to the desired situation. There is a group here that I respect very much, but it is not unique compared to other permanent servants and there is no justification for giving this group more than other groups because of a mistake made in the law. Policymakers think that even backwards, there is no justification for giving this group NIS 170 million, which no other group receives, and that is what is set out in the bill*.
Attorney Hadas Sagi, who represented the pensioners in court, said at the Knesset hearing: "If they had submitted it the right way, it wouldn't have passed because the story about two linkages is factually incorrect. This is retroactive legislation that is unthinkable. It violates the most fundamental things and the clear obligation that rulings must be upheld."
Shlomo Passi, a retiree in the research ranking: "We are talking about rights that we have accumulated over decades of military service. The organization I believed in, it should represent us, and if not it, then represent us with them. We don't have a Histadrut or a workers' organization."
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