## Facts

- Parliament enacted a statute reforming the retirement pension system, including raising the minimum legal retirement age and altering conditions for receiving a full pension.
- Opposition members of Parliament referred the statute for pre-promulgation constitutional review under Article 61 of the Constitution.
- The referral alleged substantive violations of constitutionally protected social protection guarantees and equality before the law, including disparate effects on certain groups of workers.
- The referral also challenged the legislative process, including use of accelerated procedure, the admissibility and scope of amendments, and inclusion of provisions allegedly unrelated to the bill’s subject matter.

## Issues

1. Whether increasing the legal retirement age and modifying pension entitlement rules violated constitutional guarantees of social protection and equality before the law and public burdens.
2. Whether the statute impermissibly impaired acquired rights or constitutionally protected expectations tied to prior pension rules.
3. Whether the legislative process (including accelerated procedure and amendment practice) violated constitutional requirements for parliamentary procedure, including rules against unrelated “legislative riders” and requirements of clarity and intelligibility.

## Decision

- The Constitutional Council upheld the statute’s central pension-reform measures, including the increase in the legal retirement age and related entitlement restructuring.
- The Council rejected most substantive challenges based on equality and social protection, finding no unconstitutional discrimination or denial of constitutionally guaranteed social protections.
- The Council censured certain discrete provisions on procedural grounds, concluding they lacked a sufficient connection to the bill’s subject matter and were therefore improper legislative riders.
- The statute was permitted to be promulgated substantially as enacted, subject to the targeted removals.

## Legal Principles

- The legislature has broad discretion to organize and reform social security and pension systems, constrained by constitutional equality and the requirement that statutory choices not deprive constitutional guarantees of effective legal protection.
- Equality permits different treatment of different situations, and distinctions may be justified by objectives of general interest when the classifications are related to the statute’s purpose and are not manifestly disproportionate.
- Constitutional review does not generally freeze social-benefit parameters (such as retirement age) against legislative change; protection against retroactivity and extreme impairment is assessed through general constitutional guarantees rather than an absolute bar on reform.
- Constitutional rules governing the legislative process limit amendments and added provisions: provisions without a sufficient link to the bill’s subject may be struck as legislative riders, even when the broader statute is upheld.

## Conclusion

The Constitutional Council sustained the core policy choices of the retirement reform as consistent with constitutional equality and social protection guarantees while enforcing procedural limits by invalidating certain unrelated provisions added during the legislative process.


Act to Reform Retirement Pensions (Retirement Reform Act), Decision No. 2010-617 DC (Fr. Const. Council 2010)