KOSICE, January 26, (WEBNOVINY) — The Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that health insurance companies operating in Slovakia do not have to return the generated profit back to the health sector but can decide on its use independently. The plenary session of the Constitutional Court judged on a complaint of a group of parliamentary deputies who contested constitutionality of some provisions of the law on health insurance companies, which introduced the ban forbidding private health insurers from keeping their profits, a measure pushed through by the government of Robert Fico three years ago. The Constitutional Court said on Wednesday that the contested provisions are at odds with the Slovak constitution and international regulations and conventions.
The Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that ownership rights of health insurance companies respectively of their shareholders have been fundamentally restricted while legislative norms were fundamentally modified, which the court considers an obviously inappropriate action. The Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that the intervention in the right of health insurance companies to do business in the health insurance sector by stripping them of the possibility to independently decide on the use of their profit is constitutionally unacceptable.
The Cabinet of Iveta Radicova welcomes two decisions of the Constitutional Court from Wednesday, stated Finance Minister Ivan Miklos (SDKU-DS) on behalf of the Cabinet. The Constitutional Court decided earlier in the day that the ban preventing health insurers from freely using their profit and the construction of highways on the land that the state does not own are at odds with the constitution. “It clearly proves that the steps of the previous government in this sphere were irresponsible,” the minister told a news conference. He added that both the then opposition and experts kept warning the government of Robert Fico that these legislative measures might significantly harm the citizens of Slovakia and also the Slovak Republic. If the so-called expropriation law has incurred any damages to Slovak citizens, the state will be forced to reimburse them, said Miklos.
SITA