The Supreme Court rules that the worker's right to maternity supplement does not prescribe

MADRID, 5 Mar. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Plenary Session of the Social Chamber of the Supreme Court has established in a ruling that the right of a worker to collect the maternity supplement for demographic contribution in his retirement pension does not expire despite requesting it five years after the pension was granted.

Initially, this demographic contribution supplement, which was launched in 2015, could only be received by women until a ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) in December 2019 declared that men should also receive it because the opposite was true. "discriminatory".

The demographic contribution supplement was later reformed and its name changed to the supplement for reducing the gender gap.

The ruling handed down now dismisses the appeal for the unification of doctrine filed by the National Institute of Social Security and the General Treasury of Social Security, which considered the request of a worker whose retirement pension was recognized on November 30, 2016 and requested the complement five years later, in January 2022.

The Supreme Court highlights in its ruling that the non-granting of the supplement at the time of the retirement request constituted "discrimination due to violation of the right to equality" and understands that its full reparation requires that its effects be from the date of the causative event. of the retirement pension, provided that the remaining requirements set out in the article that regulated said supplement are met.

It also defends, as an additional argument, that in no case could the beginning of the limitation period be set before the ruling of the CJEU, of December 12, 2019, which declared said article discriminatory by excluding the perception of the supplement for demographic contribution to the parents.

"The men could not acquire full knowledge of a right that the literality of the norm denied them until the date of the aforementioned sentence; therefore, prior to it, no limitation period could begin, in any case," he argues. the Supreme.

As a second additional argument, the ruling indicates that the maternity supplement for demographic contribution acts in an accessory manner to the contributory pension for retirement, permanent disability or widowhood, which it complements.

"Consequently, it does not constitute a claim independent of the one requested at the time the pension was requested, but was inherent in the action exercised to request the benefit to which it complements," the ruling explains.

The Social Security alleged for the denial of the supplement the prescription of the right to receive it because more than five years had elapsed from the date of granting the pension to the date of the request for the supplement and bases this argument on the period established in article 53 of the General Law of Social Security.

Said article establishes that the right to recognition of benefits will expire after five years, counted from the day following the day on which the event causing the benefit takes place. But the Supreme Court does not see it that way and makes it clear that the right of prescription could not begin, in any case, before the CJEU ruling of December 12, 2019.

With this decision, the Supreme Court ratifies a previous ruling of the Superior Court of Justice of Cantabria, which in turn confirmed a resolution of the Social Court number 1 of Santander, declaring the right of a worker to receive from the General Regime a supplement of maternity of 10% of the initial amount of the recognized pension, with economic effects from December 1, 2016.