Information regarding the regulatory resolution of the Constitutional Court
(№ 66 of February 7, 2025)
The Constitutional Court considered a citizen’s appeal concerning the constitutionality of subparagraph 8 of paragraph 1 of Article 208 of the Social Code (hereinafter – the Code), according to which, during the calculation of the length of service for the award of retirement pension benefits, the time of care of young children by a non-working mother is counted, but not more than until each child reaches the age of 3 years, up to a total of 12 years.
According to the subject of the appeal, this provision of the Code on the crediting of the specified time for the care of a minor child only in respect of a non-working mother contradicts the principle of equality of rights of both parents in the care and upbringing of children and is discriminatory in nature.
After two months from the birth of his son, the applicant resigned from work in order to provide him with daily medical and recuperation procedures in connection with his serious condition on the basis of a medical report and the temporary inability of the child's mother to provide such care for health reasons. Subsequently, the time spent caring for the applicant's infant son was not counted against his length of service for the purposes of pension benefits.
Having examined all the materials and legislation, the Constitutional Court pointed out that under the Constitution, the care and upbringing of children is a natural right and duty of parents, and marriage and family, maternity, paternity and childhood are protected by the State. A citizen of the Republic of Kazakhstan is guaranteed a minimum wage and pension, social security in case of age, illness, disability, loss of breadwinner and other legal grounds.
The care of a young child requires special care and protection, which is essential for the normal physical, mental, moral and psychological development of the child. During this period of the child's life, due to objective circumstances, the parent may be limited in the realization of his or her right to work.
Such circumstances arising from the fulfillment of parental responsibilities should be considered in the development of compensatory mechanisms within the framework of State policy in the area of social protection, since the Constitution enshrines the provisions of the model of a social State adopted by the Republic of Kazakhstan, which guarantees the protection of marriage and the family, maternity, paternity and childhood.
In this regard, the Constitutional Court paid attention to one of the principles of state policy in the field of social protection defined in the Social Code as equality and inadmissibility of limitation of human and civil rights in the field of social protection.
As a result of the verification, the Constitutional Court recognized subparagraph 8 of paragraph 1 of Article 208 of the Code to be in conformity with the Constitution in the following interpretation: a non-working parent shall be credited with the time spent directly caring for young children when calculating the length of service for the purpose of awarding retirement benefits.