Pensioners granted denied medical travel funds after court order

Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that the National Social Insurance Authority must pay medical transportation costs for pensioners whose treating physicians certify they cannot use public transit.

The ruling establishes parity between retirees and active workers, striking down a statutory exclusion that forced vulnerable elderly citizens to fund their own medical travel.

While the decision expands state healthcare obligations going forward, the court shielded the insurance authority from costly back-pay liabilities by denying retroactive claims. Legal advocates warned the decision could open the door to broader constitutional challenges against the country's pension framework.

In its session Wednesday, the court invalidated the final paragraph of Article 78 of the 2019 Social Insurance and Pensions Law (Law 148 of 2019), which had exempted the authority from covering transit expenses and wage compensation for retirees and their beneficiaries.

The court ordered the ruling to take effect the day after its publication in the Official Gazette, ruling out retroactive payments.

The prospective application spares the Social Insurance Authority from reimbursing eligible pensioners for prior years, limiting past payouts strictly to litigants who had already filed the underlying case.

In its reasoning, outlined in a statement obtained by Al Manassa, the court held that forcing elderly retirees to pay for medical transportation unconstitutionally diminishes guaranteed insurance protections, noting that transportation is integral to receiving medical treatment.

Imposing these expenses on an age group vulnerable to illness conflicts with the core purpose of a social insurance system and violates Articles 8, 17, 18, 35, and 83 of the Constitution concerning social protection and the rights of the elderly.

Abdel Ghafar Maghawry, an attorney specializing in public rights and pensioners’ cases, called the decision “the first blow to Law 148 of 2019.” Maghawry predicted additional legal challenges could target the law’s failure to establish a minimum pension, as well as its unequal pension settlement formulas across civil service tiers, including the ranks of minister and deputy minister.

Maghawry told Al Manassa that the ruling equalizes treatment between retirees and active employees.

“The Constitutional Court told the Social Insurance Authority: No, you are just like the employer,” Maghawry said. “If the pensioner or their beneficiary is certified by a doctor as needing private transportation to get to treatment, you have to cover it too, even by plane outside the country as long as they are approved for treatment abroad.”

Maghawry noted that the ruling accounts for pensioners’ financial realities, arguing that the state continues to benefit from retirees’ past contributions as an “interest-free loan.”

“The court made the ruling immediately effective, meaning that anyone who applies today and obtains a medical decision saying they need private transportation will receive compensation, so it becomes their right from the date the ruling is published,” Maghawry said. “But they will not receive it retroactively for previous years, except for those who had already filed the case itself.”

Under the baseline provisions of Article 78, employers must finance travel costs for active workers in two scenarios: regular transit if the medical facility is outside their residential city, or private transportation, such as an ambulance or private vehicle, when a physician certifies their condition requires it. The court's ruling applies those same private transit obligations to the Social Insurance Authority on behalf of pensioners.