(Minghui.org) Many Falun Gong practitioners who were sentenced to prison for upholding their faith in recent years also had their pensions suspended by their local social security bureau.
Most of the social security bureaus cited a letter issued by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in 2001, titled “Reply Letter from the General Office of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security on Issues Relating to Pension Insurance Benefits for Retirees After They Are Sentenced.” They argued that according to the letter, any retirees sentenced to prison aren’t entitled to any retirement benefits while serving time.
But according to Chinese labor law, a pension is the retiree’s lawfully earned assets and cannot be forfeited simply because they are sentenced. As an administrative agency, the social security bureau only manages the funds for the retiree and has no power to suspend the funds from any individual.
Despite the lack of legal basis, the social security bureaus across the country continue to demand Falun Gong practitioners return the retirement funds issued to them during their prison terms. When the practitioners refused to comply, the bureaus suspended their pension in order for them to “pay back” the fund.
Such is the case for Ms. Zhu Chunrong, a Jixi City, Heilongjiang Province resident.
A few days after Ms. Zhu was released in May 2021 from serving a 2.5-year term for her faith in Falun Gong, she was ordered to pay back the 81,782.64 yuan pension that she received during her imprisonment.
The social security bureau claimed that according to a new policy, Ms. Zhu wasn’t entitled to receive any retirement benefits during her term. They said that as long as she returned the fund, they could start a new cycle of her pension payment from June 2021.
To make sure that she still had a stable income, her family quickly gathered 53,873.94 yuan and submitted it to the social security bureau.
After two months of recovery from the torture in custody, Ms. Zhu went to the social security bureau with her family in July, demanding the bureau show the legal basis for ordering her to return the fund. The officials showed her the above-mentioned letter.
Ms. Zhu said to the officials that the letter was against Chinese labor law. She decided that she shouldn’t cooperate with the bureau and she refused to make another payment of the remaining 27,908.7 yuan. Because of that, the social security office suspended her pension starting in July.
On August 28, 2021, Ms. Zhu wrote to the social security bureau, demanding them to reinstate her pension, but to no avail. She contacted the office a few more times afterwards, but was always stonewalled.
Ms. Zhu submitted a motion of administrative reconsideration with the appeals office of Jixi City government on December 16, 2021, demanding an investigation of her case. The agency accepted the case on December 27 and ruled to reject her motion on January 26, 2022.
On February 16, 2022, Ms. Zhu filed an administrative litigation with the Jiguan District Court. The judge accepted her case on the next day.
Prior to the hearing on April 15, 2022, the court staff members demanded her to avoid mentioning in her litigation that she practices Falun Gong and whether the document the social security bureau gave her was legal or not. She refused to comply.
Ms. Zhu argued in the hearing that no Chinese labor law has ruled that Chinese citizens should be deprived of pension payments when they serve prison time. The notice itself is only a letter, not an enacted law. So it was illegal for the social security bureau to use that as legal reference to suspend her pension.
She pointed out that according to another letter issued by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security in 2017, “Regulatory documents shall not set administrative licenses, penalties, coercion, fees, or other matters outside of the legal scope; relevant agencies shall not infringe upon the interests of citizens, legal persons or other organizations without the basis of laws and administrative regulations.” As such, the letter issued by the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in 2001 has clearly violated what was set forth by the 2017 letter.
Ms. Zhu added that when the social security bureau suspended her pension, it enforced the property penalty law. But in fact, as an administrative agency, the bureau didn’t have the right to do so.
Ms. Zhu was notified on May 19 of the judge’s decision to reject her case. She appealed with the Jixi City Intermediate Court on June 1, 2022. She also submitted examples of judges in other provinces ruling in favor of Falun Gong practitioners in similar pension dispute cases. Yet the higher court still ruled to uphold the original verdict on September 31, 2022.
Ms. Zhu said despite the obstacles, she was not deterred, but would continue her effort to seek justice.
Sun Yong (孙勇), president of Jixi City Intermediate CourtTian Jinghui (田晶辉), judge: +86-467-2881897Yan Guangdan (闫广丹), president of Jiguan District Court: +86-17645355001, +86-467-2638333Xu Chunbo (徐春波), director of Jixi City Social Security Bureau: +86-15604675077, +86-467-2386601
(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)
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