Early financial retirement: an administrative measure without legal basis

By: Omar Shaban

Expert in political economy and director of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies

“Financial retirement” is an administrative measure — utterly illegal and illogical, without parallel anywhere but Palestine — taken by the previous Palestinian government headed by Dr Rami Hamdallah within the set of “measures/sanctions” in March 2017.

Financial retirement means the employee carries out the work of their public post as usual while drawing a retiree's salary. Beyond that, deeming an employee financially retired deprives them of every benefit the law grants: the parents'-support allowance, the wife allowance, the allowance for children studying at university and for an unmarried daughter, the freezing of promotions, the transport allowance, and the rest.

How can you be a teacher going to work daily, a doctor continuing to serve the people, a school principal raising the generations — and be classified as “retired”!

Depriving the employee of these due allowances is an injustice in itself and a breach of the civil-service law, which stands as the contract between employee and government. Depriving the employee of their dues likewise has grave social and economic repercussions, among them: rising poverty rates; rendering the employee unable to fulfil their moral duty toward their family and parents; increased domestic violence; and the deepening of the behaviours and values of political and moral extremism.

These are decisions applied to the Palestinian National Authority's employees in the Gaza Strip only — which is in itself discrimination between employees who are supposed to be subject to the same law: discrimination based, regrettably, on geography.

Financial retirement has covered more than 6,600 employees in the Gaza Strip; the harms of this measure are thus great and cumulative. Financial retirement means an employee's salary becomes 1,700 shekels instead of an original 4,000. Financial retirement and the reduction of salaries are a degradation of the dignity of the employee and their family, and a deepening of the state of political division.

The salaries of public-sector employees are a right the law guarantees them and a due reward for their work. They are a fundamental component in forming gross domestic income and in energising the local economy. Palestinian public-sector employees are an important element in the process of development and of building the state's institutions and structures. Public-sector employees in any state are the cornerstone of development and stability; doing them justice contributes to political and societal stability and the achievement of social justice.

The prime minister, Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh, pledged to abolish this unjust measure — a recognition on his part of the importance and necessity of abolishing it.

I add my voice to the voices of thousands of employees and their families in calling on the prime minister, Dr Shtayyeh, to hasten to implement what he pledged: abolishing financial retirement and returning the sums due to the Palestinian public-sector employees.

Achieving political and emotional unity among the sons of one people requires applying the principle that “all are equal before the law and under it”.