18 July, 2024
On 17 July 2024, at the public part of the plenary session in the form of written proceedings, the First Senate deliberated the case upon the constitutional complaint of Raisa Voitevych regarding the constitutionality of Article 8.2 of the Law of Ukraine “On the State Budget for 2024” No. 3460-IX dated 9 November 2023 (hereinafter, “the Law”).
During the plenary session, the judge-rapporteur in the case, Oleksandr Petryshyn, outlined the content of the constitutional complaint and the complainant's arguments.
According to the judge-rapporteur, Article 8.2 of the Law sets the minimum wage, which is applied as an estimated value for payments calculation under court decisions, at UAH 1600.
Based on the analysis of the constitutional complaint and the attached materials, the following is seen.
The Enforcement Division of the Decision Enforcement Department in the Zhytomyr Region of the Central Interregional Department of the Ministry of Justice (Kyiv) has a writ of execution in the case of Raisa Voitevych, issued on 14 April 2021 by the Zhytomyr District Administrative Court. This letter obliges the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Zhytomyr Region (hereinafter, “the Department”) to accrue and pay a pension increase to a non-working pensioner living in the territory of radioactive contamination in the amount determined by Article 39 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chornobyl Disaster”, which is equal to two minimum wages for the relevant calendar year, starting from 17 July 2018.
Pursuant to the requirements of the state enforcement officer, starting from 17 July 2018, the Department recalculated and accrued the said payments, and the total amount of pension payment from 1 October 2022 was UAH 15,547.
However, starting from 1 January 2024, the Department, pursuant to court decisions, accrued an increase to the pension as a non-working pensioner living in the territory of radioactive contamination in the amount specified in Article 39 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chornobyl Disaster”, taking into account Article 8 of the Law, i.e. UAH 3200 (1600x2).
Disagreeing with this calculation, the applicant filed a lawsuit in which she sought to declare unlawful the inaction of the Chief State Enforcement Officer, which, in her opinion, consisted in the failure to take the measures provided for by law to ensure enforcement.
The court of first instance dismissed the claim. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and upheld the decision of the first instance court.
According to the complainant, in the absence of a special legislative act that would determine the right to apply the minimum wage as an estimated value for payments calculation under court decisions, the disputed provision of the Law worsens the legal position of a person by narrowing the content and scope of his or her social rights.
Having examined the case file in the public part, the Court proceeded to the in-camera part for a decision.
The public part of the plenary session is available on the official website of the Court in the Section “Archive of video broadcasts of the sessions”.
