Text file: 3033.txt
author: Vanja Rainer
downvotes: 5
end consideration date: 2012-05-19
id: '3033'
number comments: 5
number views: 4206
proposal type: Competent authority response
response: 'Response from the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport

  The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport (hereinafter referred to as
  "MESCS") has analysed and examined the provisions of the Religious Freedom Act (Official
  Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No. 14/07, 46/10 - Decision of the US and 40/12
  - ZUJF; hereinafter referred to as "ZVS"), which regulate the payment of contributions
  for religious employees from the state budget, in relation to the proposal No. 3033
  to immediately abolish the payment of contributions for priests and nuns from the
  state budget. Please find below the reply to Proposal No 3033. First of all, we
  would like to explain the current legal regime on the partial payment of social
  security contributions for religious officials by the State. First paragraph 27.
  Article 27 of the ZVS provides that registered churches and other religious communities
  may, under the conditions of the ZVS, pay the social security contributions for
  their religious servants who are citizens of the Republic of Slovenia with permanent
  residence in the Republic of Slovenia and for whom the profession of religious servant
  is their sole occupation, apply, on the basis of their authorisation and on their
  behalf, for the right to receive earmarked State financial assistance from the State
  budget to cover social security contributions in the amount of the following types
  of social security contributions on a base of at least 48 per cent of the average
  salary for the month preceding the month in which the insurance base is determined:
  for compulsory pension and invalidity insurance (contribution by the insured person)
  and for compulsory sickness insurance (contribution by the insured person). Pursuant
  to Article 27(2) of the ZVS, priests and religious are entitled to the earmarked
  State financial assistance referred to in Article 27(1) of the ZVS, even if they
  have a relationship with a church or other religious community which does not have
  all the elements of an employment relationship. The State may pay the assistance
  referred to in Article 27, paragraph 1, of the ZVS for priests who have at least
  a secondary education and for religious who have taken vows of celibacy, chastity
  and obedience. Other religious servants have this right only if they have an employment
  contract with a church or other religious community which guarantees the salary
  of the religious servant. Article 27, paragraph 4, of the ZVS provides that the
  State, in providing the right to assistance, shall take into account a reasonable
  proportion between the number of religious servants and the number of members of
  a registered church or other religious community who are citizens of the Republic
  of Slovenia with permanent residence in the Republic of Slovenia. A reasonable proportion
  is met if a ratio of at least 1 000 members of a registered church or other religious
  community per one religious official of that church or other religious community
  is established. Churches and other religious communities shall prove the number
  of their members by means of credible data sources, including, but not limited to,
  the use of data from the most recent population census. Article 28(4) of the ZVS
  provides that the number of persons in respect of whom State aid for the payment
  of contributions, as set out in Article 27(1) of the ZVS, is payable to a church
  or other religious community for a particular month may, in the calendar year following
  the entry into force of the ZVS, be no more than five per cent higher than it was
  in the first month following the entry into force of the preceding Article. If five
  per cent is not a whole number, the number shall be rounded up. In each subsequent
  year, the number of persons in respect of whom aid is payable to a church or other
  religious community for a particular month may be no more than five per cent, rounded
  up to the nearest whole number, greater than the number of persons in the month
  of the preceding year in which that number was the greatest. In the case of churches
  and other religious communities which, for the first month following the date of
  application of the preceding Article, have not acquired the rights referred to in
  the preceding Article, the provisions of this paragraph shall apply mutatis mutandis
  by limiting the annual increase in the number of persons in respect of whom aid
  is payable to five per cent. Article 28(5) of the ZVS provides that the maximum
  monthly number of persons of a church or other religious community in respect of
  whom aid is payable may be increased by a maximum of 10 %, rounded up to the nearest
  whole number, in each consecutive five-year period. As regards the appropriateness
  of the arrangements for the partial financing by the State of contributions to religious
  officials, we would point out that the Constitution, in accordance with Article
  2, obliges the State to carry out the functions of a welfare state, thereby placing
  it in a position where it must ensure the existence and functioning of the various
  segments of civil society, other institutions and associations. The requirement
  of the principle of the welfare state is that, instead of formal equality of the
  individual, the State should ensure substantive equality, which means real equality
  of opportunity in the effective exercise of all the rights of the individual in
  practice, in real life, for which the basic prerequisite is, above all, the equalization
  of the actual conditions for the acquisition of material and moral goods. This requires
  active measures by the State, its active action and intervention in individual areas
  of human life. Thus, in Articles 83 and 84 of the Act on the Exercise of the Public
  Interest in Culture (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No 96/02, as
  amended), the State has undertaken to finance social and health insurance contributions
  for all those who, under certain conditions, are self-employed in culture or who
  pursue a cultural or other artistic profession. The above is an expression of respect
  for the principle of the welfare state, since cultural workers and artists perform
  a specific work which does not primarily pursue economic objectives, but primarily
  contributes to the cultural and spiritual enrichment of society, while at the same
  time helping to build a national identity. Article 14 of the Constitution guarantees
  the principle of equality, which prohibits discrimination of any kind, including
  on the grounds of religious or any other belief. In order to respect this principle,
  the State also finances social and health insurance contributions for religious
  employees. The latter perform an important function in satisfying the human need
  for spirituality and the practice of religion, in which the State certainly has
  an interest. This interest is manifested in the creation of a system of values that
  the modern state needs for the existence of a society that is capable of resolving
  its own conflicts in a democratic system. Moreover, it should be pointed out that,
  in addition to the most important task - spiritual care - religious officials also
  carry out a range of other activities that are important in a modern society. These
  include charitable, educational, educational, humanitarian, cultural and other similar
  activities. We would like to further clarify that the methods of financing religious
  communities in different European countries vary greatly and are generally conditioned
  by the historical development of the relationship between the state and religious
  communities, and that is also why the ZVS had no intention of interfering with the
  system that has been in place in the Republic of Slovenia. The only way of directly
  financing religious communities is through the payment of compulsory insurance contributions
  to religious employees who are Slovenian citizens and for whom this is their only
  profession. Since 1964, the State has financed their pension and invalidity insurance
  in one way or another. A special government decision of 1991 took over this arrangement
  in independent Slovenia and added the coverage of their health insurance contributions.
  In addition to respecting the principle of the welfare state, the legislator assumed
  in the ZVS that this was the traditional and only method of financing which provided
  religious communities with a continuous minimum level of resources, and therefore
  did not change it, but only supplemented it in such a way as to ensure transparency
  of financing and to allow for monitoring, and for the first time clearly regulated
  at the statutory level rights which had long been recognised at the sub-statutory
  level.  We further clarify that the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia
  has never prohibited the financing of religious communities in its decisions. In
  the opinion given in the procedure for the assessment of the constitutionality of
  the Agreement between the Republic of Slovenia and the Holy See on Legal Issues,
  No. Rm-1/02 (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia, No. 118/03), the Constitutional
  Court of the Republic of Slovenia stated in paragraph 19 that "the principle of
  separation of the State and religious communities does not mean that all support
  and assistance is excluded, provided, of course, that the equality of all religious
  communities is ensured. The Constitutional Court has similarly interpreted the content
  of this principle in Decision No U-I-92/01 of 28 February 2002." In the same decision,
  the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia further stated in paragraph
  20: "One of the essential components of the principle of separation of state and
  religious communities in countries characterised by its strict implementation (France,
  the United States of America, Japan) is that the state does not financially or otherwise
  support religious activities." It is clear from the above-mentioned paragraph 20
  that, in the light of the above-mentioned paragraph 19, the Republic of Slovenia
  does not apply the most restrictive form of the principle of separation of the state
  and religious communities, since, as stated above, state support and assistance
  to religious communities are not excluded in Slovenia. The Constitutional Court
  of the Republic of Slovenia reiterates the same position in Decision No U-I-92/07
  in its constitutional review of the legal regulation of the financing of religious
  communities (Article 20 of the CPLR and the third paragraph of Article 29 of the
  Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia). In Decision No U-I-92/07, the Constitutional
  Court of the Republic of Slovenia ruled that Article 20 of the ZPPVS and the third
  paragraph of Article 29(3) of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia do not
  contradict the principle of the separation of the state and religious communities,
  namely the requirement of religious or denominational neutrality of the state, which
  is derived from this principle (para. 130). The Constitutional Court of the Republic
  of Slovenia in Decision U-I-92/07 also assessed the fifth paragraph of Article 27
  of the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia (paragraph 3 of the operative part).
  Article 27 of the ZVS and found that the contested provision makes a distinction
  in the field of the regulation of additional benefits, i.e. in the field of the
  State''s promotional activities, whereby the legislator is constitutionally bound
  by the prohibition of arbitrary, unreasonable distinctions between those religious
  communities which may obtain additional benefits and those which may not apply for
  them (paragraph 206). It follows from paragraph 9 of the operative part of the decision
  of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia that the fifth paragraph
  of Article 27 of the ZVS is also not incompatible with the Constitution. In the
  light of the above, the Republic of Slovenia has not adopted the concept of the
  principle of strict separation of the State and religious communities, but rather
  the concept of cooperation between the State and religious communities, while respecting
  the principle of State sovereignty and the autonomy of religious communities. The
  Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Slovenia has prepared a draft
  amendment to the ZVS-A, which is necessary in order to bring the ZVS into line with
  the decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, No. U-I-92/07.
  One of the proposed solutions also relates to the partial payment of contributions
  to religious employees of registered churches, i.e., following the end of the economic
  crisis in the Republic of Slovenia (i.e. After the end of the economic crisis in
  the Republic of Slovenia (i.e. after the end of the year following the year in which
  economic growth exceeds 2.5 per cent of the gross social product), it is envisaged
  to increase the basis for determining the amount of social security contributions
  for clergy in the same way as it was established before the entry into force of
  the Act on Balancing Public Finances (Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia
  No. 40/12, 96/12 - ZPIZ-2, 104/12 - ZIPRS1314 and 105/12; hereinafter: ZUJF). With
  regard to the proposed increase of the base, the MoLFCC explains that while the
  ZUJF introduced temporary measures in the area of pension and invalidity insurance
  and pension alignment, on the other hand, with regard to the payment of contributions
  for pension and invalidity insurance as well as for (compulsory) health insurance,
  the ZUJF does not affect other groups of persons in this area, such as religious
  employees whose enjoyment of their right to social security has been reduced in
  a significant way. The Ministry of Social Security and Social Security considers
  that the ZUJF measure, which reduced the basis for determining the amount of social
  security contributions for clergy and thus reduced the enjoyment of the right to
  social security by religious employees, should also be of a temporary nature, i.e.
  only for the duration of the economic crisis. Given that the ZUJF did not provide
  for any transitional period for such a reduction, this is regulated in the draft
  bill in a manner comparable to other temporary measures of the ZUJF. Having examined
  and analysed the regulation of the partial financing of contributions to religious
  employees, the MoEFCC considers that the solutions contained in the ZVS and the
  draft amendment to the ZVS-A are appropriate, adequate and constitutionally compatible.      '
response date: 2013-02-28
response due date: null
sent date: 2012-04-20
title: IMMEDIATE ABOLITION OF THE BUDGETARY CONTRIBUTIONS FOR PRIESTS AND NUNS
upvotes: 45
url: https://predlagam.vladi.si/predlog/3033
