STF resumes judgment on appeal on "whole life review"
The STF (Supreme Federal Court) resumed this Friday (12) the judgment of an appeal that sought to guarantee retirees the right to the so-called "whole life review" from the INSS (National Social Security Institute), even after the Court had rejected the thesis in a previous decision.
The case was being analyzed in the virtual plenary and already has a majority of votes to deny the appeal. In May, however, minister Edson Fachin asked for "highlight", an appeal that would take the trial to the physical plenary and reset the votes already presented.
A few days later, he withdrew the request. As a result, the process returned to the virtual plenary this Friday, keeping the votes already registered by the ministers valid.
Rapporteur of the action, Minister Kássio Nunes Marques defended the rejection of the appeal. He states that the topic has already been "thoroughly" debated by the Supreme Court, which rejected the thesis in March 2024.
According to the rapporteur, the STF has already guaranteed sufficient protection for retirees by deciding that anyone who received lifetime review amounts until April 2024 will not need to return the money or pay costs and fees.
However, this does not mean maintaining the right to recalculate pensions for those who still had shares in progress. According to Nunes Marques, preserving these benefits would mean maintaining payments "in disagreement with the thesis established" by the Supreme Court.
Minister Cármen Lúcia and ministers Alexandre de Moraes, Cristiano Zanin, Flávio Dino, Gilmar Mendes and Luiz Fux voted with him.
Minister Dias Toffoli opened a partial divergence. For him, countless INSS retirees trusted the "whole life review" thesis, accepted by the Supreme Court in 2022. However, the change in the Court's position in 2024 frustrated the expectations of policyholders.
"We need to take into account the profile of the people affected by the Court's change of understanding: elderly people, low-income people, rural workers, pensioners in situations of economic vulnerability and their respective families", says the minister in his vote.
He adds that people who took legal action to be entitled to the review "organized their financial lives" based on this expectation, and that they are now experiencing difficulty or inability to reorganize themselves financially.
The votes of Edson Fachin and André Mendonça still remain. They can register their position in the process's online system until next Friday (19).
What is the "whole life review"
The INSS "whole life review" is a mechanism that allowed retirees to choose the most advantageous calculation rule for retirement payments.
The discussion dates back to the creation of the Plano Real, in 1994. With the creation of the plan, the INSS started to consider only salaries after July of that year when calculating retirement.
In practice, the measure harmed those who earned well before 1994 and started to earn less afterwards.
With the "lifetime review", the Supreme Court allowed these old contributions (before 1994) to enter the account, which would increase the value of the benefit for some Brazilians.
The judgment in favor of the thesis took place in 2022. However, in 2024, the court changed its position and invalidated the understanding.
At the time, the ministers were judging actions relating to the Social Security Benefits Law. The plenary formed a majority so that a rule for calculating retirement must be compulsorily followed, which bars the retiree's power of choice regarding the possibility of opting for the review.
The action that was analyzed by the collegiate last week was presented by the CNTM (National Confederation of Metal Workers), which argued that the Supreme Court should limit the temporal impact of the decision that barred the "lifelong review". The objective would be to allow those who filed lawsuits before the court's change of understanding to not be harmed.
Big techs will have 60 days to adapt to the new rules imposed by the STF | H TIME
Source: CNN