The Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia agrees with Social Security and denies a retirement pension to an 82-year-old man who had more than 45 years of contributions throughout his working life. The reason is that he had not met the specific deficiency requirement, that is, that he did not have sufficient contributions within the last 15 years prior to the application.
As detailed in the ruling, the worker requested a retirement pension from the National Social Security Institute (INSS), which was denied for not meeting the specific deficiency requirement. Although he had an immense working life, with a total of 16,542 days of contributions between the General Regime and the Self-Employed Regime (RETA), he did not reach the two years of contributions (730 days) necessary within the last 15 years prior to his application, registering only 160 days, that is, he was missing 530 days.
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Despite that extensive working life, in which 11,207 days were in the General Regime and 5,390 in the RETA, his record was weighed down by a debt with Social Security of 26,474.50 euros derived from his time as a self-employed person, which had caused him to not be able to request the pension before (remember that to request the pension you must be up to date with Social Security contributions).
Even so, the main reason why the Superior Court of Justice confirmed the denial was not the debt itself, but rather that when the application date was set in December 2020, it was found that in the previous 15 years he had hardly had any work activity. This meant that it did not comply with the specific deficiency requirement, which is regulated in article 205.1.b of the General Social Security Law (which can be consulted in this BOE).
Not satisfied with this Social Security decision, this worker decided to go to court. In the first instance, the Social Court No. 2 of Córdoba ruled in favor of the Social Security and, subsequently, filed an appeal before the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia, which also ruled in favor of the administration.
The dispute over the “causal event”
Once in the Superior Court of Justice, Indalecio’s defense sought to modify the date of the “causing event.”
His idea was that they would roll that date back to December 31, 2012, which was his last actual day of work, instead of using the application date in 2020. The idea was that, by taking the 2012 date, the previous 15 years would include his periods of greatest work activity, thus allowing him to be entitled to the pension.
The Court told him no, explaining that in order to establish the causative event at the time of cessation of work (2012) and not in the application (2020), it is necessary to be in a situation of “discharge or assimilated to discharge.” As Indalecio was not in this situation in 2020, the law requires the periods to be calculated from the date of the request. For this reason, the Court could not accept the change of dates, confirming that in the real computable period (2005-2020) there were only 160 days of contributions, far from the 730 required.
With this, the Superior Court of Justice determined that the worker did not meet the legal requirements to access retirement under the General Regime. Furthermore, he clarified that although the Supreme Court allows collecting the pension from the General Regime having debts in the RETA (if the rights are generated independently), this doctrine is of no use if, as in this case, the basic requirements for recent contributions are not met.
For all that, Indalecio did not meet the requirements to access the retirement pension at this time. The ruling confirms the previous ruling, although there is still the possibility of presenting an appeal for Cassation for the Unification of Doctrine before the Supreme Court if it is considered that there is a legal violation contradictory to other rulings.