Finanse, Rynki Finansowe, Ubezpieczenia

Purpose – The purpose of the present article is to point to the fact that the Republic of Poland does not comply with conventions no. 35 and 36 of the International Labour Organization regarding obligatory pension insurance, which Poland implemented into its domestic legislation by Acts of Law. The Acts on retirement age adopted by the Parliament in 2012, which established 67 years as the age in which persons covered by the obligatory pension insurance scheme gain the right to receive the funds they are entitled to, are not compliant with the conventions implemented by the Republic of Poland. As a consequence of these Acts, from the beginning of 2013 the retirement age of both men and women will gradually increase until it reaches 67 years, while at the same time increasing retirement age above 65 years of age is in conflict with Polish law. Methodology – The analysis presented in this article was aimed at proving the incompliance of the provisions of the Act of May 11th 2012 amending the act on pensions from the Social Security Fund and several other acts, and in consequence also the Act of December 17th 1998 on pensions from the Social Security Fund, with binding Polish legislation. Then, on the basis of preliminary estimations the authors of the present article made an attempt at determining the potential losses of the Polish State Treasury due to potential claims by pensioners who against the law were deprived of a part of the payments they were entitled to. Results – the analysis performed led to the following conclusions. The adoption of a legal act which increases retirement age above 65 years is against Polish law. At the time the present article was published the total value of the potential claims of victimized pensioners was estimated at PLN 3.5 billion.