Newsletter
FORFEITURE OF CANCER DEATH BENEFITS UNCONSTI-TUTIONAL
In past interpretations, the Council of Labor Af-fairs (CLA) has ruled that if a worker who had contracted cancer or certain other diseases prior to joining the labor insurance scheme died while insured, the beneficiaries could not collect death benefits. However, in a constitutional interpre-tation issued in January 2006, the Constitutional Court held that a worker's right to join the labor insurance scheme, and the public-law rights ac-cruing to a worker from the scheme, were pro-tected by the Constitution, and that the restriction imposed by the CLA was unconstitutional and must be abolished immediately.
The Constitutional Court stated that matters af-fecting the rights and obligations of a worker and his beneficiaries, such as the commencement, suspension, or termination of insurance coverage, classes of insured event, and payment of insur-ance benefits, must be regulated by statute or by administrative directives issued under a clear authority of statute. By using interpretation let-ters, which were directives, to impose the re-striction that the beneficiaries of workers who contracted cancer and other specific diseases would be entitled to death benefits only if the worker contracted the condition after becoming insured, the CLA had exceeded the scope of au-thorization under the Labor Insurance Act, and had thus violated the constitutional doctrine of reservation of law (Gesetzesvorbehalt—the principle that any administrative act that restricts individual rights must be ahtuorized by statute). Therefore the restriction should no longer be ap-plied.