Prague - Czech women will keep retiring earlier than Czech men, courtesy of their life-time care of children. Those among Czech men who raise their offspring alone are not entitled to the same treatment.
On Wednesday Constitutional Court rejected the Supreme Administrative Court's proposal to eradicate this type of discrimination against men.
"The law sets the retirement age for women to be dependent on the number of children they brought up, while in the case of men it does not matter whether they are consigned a child care by a court ruling and they raise their kids themselves, their retirement age remains fixed," stated the Supreme Administrative Court's proposal.
The proposal was based on a specific case of a male single parent from northern Moravia.
Objective and reasonable
The Constitutional Court has claimed that in spite of giving one group of people more benefits than another, the different retirement age for men and women cannot be considered breaching the rule of equality.
And it is up to the lawmakers whether they incorporate this kind of treatment into a law or not.
According to the Constitutional Court, the different approach to men and women when setting their retirement age is based on objective and reasonable grounds.
Besides, it is far from being exceptional in the European Union member states. Nonetheless, the trend in Europe is to eradicate the difference in retirement age for men and women.
Should the "discrimination provision" be eliminated, more than likely the retirement age for women would be made fixed, said constitutional judges who were not unanimous in their decision. In other words, men would not retire in the same way women do now.
In past the Government Council for Human Rights as well as the Helsinki Committee pointed to the discrimination against men who raise children alone.
Government desires change
In 2003 the Czech government proposed to set the fixed retirement age both for men and women without reflecting the number of children raised.
The idea of a same retirement age for men and women reflects the European Union´s fundamental principle of gender equality.
The Chamber of Deputies, however, rejected the government's proposal.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs says reducing the retirement age for men who raise children would heavily burden the state pension funds.
The Constitutional Court stated the whole retirement age issue ought to be solved by "wisely" timed reform of the entire pension fund system.
And the eradication of the unequal position of women and men has to reflect the development of social conditions in the Czech Republic in general, judges added.
