17 July, 2024
On Wednesday, 17 July 2024, the First Senate deliberated the case upon the constitutional complaint of Volodymyr Yanko in the public part of the plenary session in the form of written proceedings.
During the plenary session, the judge-rapporteur in the case, Viktor Kryvenko, said that the complainant had applied to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine with a petition to verify the constitutionality of certain provisions of Article 2.1 of the Law of Ukraine “On Measures to Legislatively Ensure the Reform of the Pension System” No. 3668-VI dated 8 July 2011 as amended (hereinafter, “Law No. 3668”) regarding the extension of its effect to the Law of Ukraine “On Public Prosecution” No. 1697-VII dated 14 October 2014, as amended (hereinafter, “Law No. 1697”) and establishing that the maximum amount of pension granted (recalculated) in accordance with Law No. 1697 may not exceed ten subsistence minimums established for persons who have lost their ability to work.
The author of the petition also requests to verify the constitutionality of Article 86.15.6.1 of Law No. 1697, according to which “the maximum amount of a pension (including allowances, increases, additional pensions, targeted financial assistance, pensions for special services to Ukraine, indexation and other pension supplements established by law, except for supplements to allowances for certain categories of persons with special services to the Motherland) may not exceed ten subsistence minimums established for persons who have lost their ability to work”.
The content of the constitutional complaint and the materials attached to it show that Volodymyr Yanko is registered with the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Ivano-Frankivsk region (hereinafter, “the Department”). He was granted a pension on the basis of Article 501 of the Law of Ukraine ‘On the Prosecutor's Office’ of 5 November 1991 No. 1789-XII, n the wording effective at the time of granting the pension, in the amount of 90% of his monthly salary.
In December 2022, he filed a lawsuit against the Pension Fund in the court of first instance, seeking, inter alia, to declare unlawful the Pension Fund's actions to limit the maximum amount of his long-service pension to ten subsistence minimums. The court of first instance, with which the court of appeal agreed, dismissed his claim.
According to the author of the petition, the limitation of the maximum amount of his pension to ten subsistence minimums established for persons who have lost their ability to work violates his right to own, use and dispose of his property and his right to social protection.
The judge-rapporteur informed that the Grand Chamber of the Court is considering 13 more constitutional complaints on similar issues, which are combined into one constitutional proceeding.
The court examined the case file in the public part of the plenary session and proceeded to the in-camera part.
The subject of the constitutional complaint, Volodymyr Yanko, attended the public part of the plenary session.
The video recording of the plenary session is available on the official website of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in the Section “Archive of video broadcasts of the sessions”.
