| title: | The Protection of an Individual’s Rights in the Social Security Disputes: Estonian Practical Experience and its Comparison with Experience in Member States of the European Union. |
|---|---|
| reg no: | ETF6646 |
| project type: | Estonian Science Foundation research grant |
| subject: |
5.2. Juridical Sciences |
| status: | accepted |
| institution: | TU Faculty of Law |
| head of project: | Gaabriel Tavits |
| duration: | 01.01.2006 - 31.12.2008 |
| description: | The functioning social security system and the effectiveness of the different social benefits does not only depend from the facts, to whom and in what conditions the social benefits will be granted. The effectiveness of such system also depends on the fact, how can an individual protect his or her rights, in a case the benefits will not be granted or his or her other social security rights will be violated. The social protection can only be effective, if a person has a right to arise a claim against to social security institutions and he or she has a legally guaranteed right to protect his or her rights in a court or in a social security institution. The protection of individual rights in social security disputes is important, because in matters of social security a person communicates mainly with state or with local authorities. In special cases e.g. in questions of maintenance allowance the social worker is the only persons, who alone decides, whether a persons in need becomes a benefit or not. The aim of the project is to analyse the disputes which arise by granting the different social benefits, to systematise these disputes and to make on the basis of analyses proposals for amendments in different legal acts concerning the social security and legal protection of a person in social security disputes. The preliminary analysis of the Estonian legislation in this field shows, that the final institution in disputes about the social security matters is the administrative court. The role of administrative courts by solving the social security disputes is very important one, to protect an individual’s rights in social security matters and also to interpret the social security legislation. Important in this sense are e.g. disputes concerning the maintenance benefits, where the Estonian Social Welfare Act gives to the courts quite the large scale to define, what is the sufficient income. This interpretation can be different in different cases. At the same time it should noted that the social security disputes do not only involve different benefits, but such disputes may also concern the main civil liberties of a person concerned. In this sense has a court by interpreting the different social security laws, an important role to play. To find out which are the problems by solving the social security disputes it is important to analyse the court decision of different levels. The court decisions to be analysed will be taken from the period beginning 1992, because from this year the Supreme Court (Riigikohus) of Estonia starts to function and the first important legal acts in field of social security will be adopted. In addition to court decisions also analyses of decisions of the pension commissions will be needed. The main part of decisions made in pension commissions will not be solved in courts. Only the analyses of the court decisions and the practice of social security institutions can give us the true information, if the rights of an individuals in social security disputes will be followed and which are the main problems in social security laws in material and in procedural sense. The main hypotheses of the research work is, that until 1999 the social security disputes handled by the courts are quite simple, concerning the contents and the structure of the disputes. Also the number of such disputes is low. From the 1999 one can see, the number of social security disputes is increasing rapidly and also the structure of the disputes and the problems to be solved are more complicated as this was before the 1999. The aims of the project are: 1) to analyse the court cases in social security disputes; 2) to analyse the problems which are dealt with in the court cases and to summarise these problems; 3) to analyse the practise of the pension commissions in Tallinn, Tartu, Narva, Pärnu; 4) the scientifically argued proposals to amend the social security legislation taking account the court practice; also proposals to modernise the protection of individuals rights in social security disputes; 5) scientifically argued proposals to unify the system of litigation of social security disputes especially pre-court procedure; 6) to publish the results of the research in different internationally recognised journals and to use the results of the research by training the judges and public servants, who are dealing with social security questions. |
| project group | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| no | name | institution | position | |
| 1. | Merli Mendelman | |||
| 2. | Gaabriel Tavits | Tartu Ülikool | ||