On December 11, 2025, the Grand Chamber of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine deliberated the case upon the constitutional petition of the Supreme Court regarding the constitutionality of Article 233.1 of the Labor Code of Ukraine (hereinafter, the “Code”) and delivered Decision No. 1-r/2025.
The Judge-Rapporteur in the case was Galyna Yurovska.
According to Article 233.1 of the Code, “an employee may apply to a court for the resolution of a labor dispute within three months from the date when he or she learned or should have learned about the violation of his or her rights, except in cases provided for in Article 233.2.”
The author of the petition argued that the legislator, “by limiting the employee's right to apply to the court with a claim for the collection of wages due to him to a period of three months, without providing the employee with guarantees that the court would consider the issue of renewing the period for applying to the court, reduced the level of access to court for persons who are subjects of claims for the collection of wage arrears, thereby narrowing the content and scope of the existing constitutional rights of employees to file a lawsuit to collect wages owed to them without any time limit, and restricted their right to judicial protection to the extent guaranteed by Article 55.1 of the Constitution of Ukraine, thereby negating the possibility of effective exercise of the right to judicial protection.”
Having examined the issues raised in the constitutional petition, the Court concluded that the contested provision of the Code establishing a three-month period for an employee to apply to the court for the collection of wages and other payments due to the employee is inconsistent with the Constitution of Ukraine.
The Court noted that the legislature has discretion in determining the time limits for an employee to apply to the court in labor disputes and may establish different time limits for different categories of such disputes, taking into account the nature of the disputed legal relations, the legal nature of the claims, the duration or regularity of the violation, the method of its detection, the scope and complexity of the evidence, etc. The legislature must also take into account the extraordinary nature of the legal regime of martial law and the associated objective obstacles to access to justice.
Although setting a time limit for the exercise of a person's statutory right is a matter for the legislature to decide, it is fair and objectively justified only if such a restriction does not violate the essence of the right, is established for a legitimate purpose, and is achieved by proportionate means, the Decision states.
An analysis of the current labor legislation gives the Court grounds to assert that the legislator has linked the time limit for applying to the court only to acts formalizing the termination of employment relations and has not taken into account the specifics of ongoing legal relations. Thus, an employee in an employment relationship, in the event of systematic non-payment of remuneration or periodic delays in payment, must file lawsuits every three months in order not to lose the right to judicial protection.
Such legislative regulation does not take into account the balance of interests of the parties in labor relations, contradicts the principle of equality, and causes legal uncertainty, which deprives the employee of effective protection of the right to timely receive remuneration for work guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine.
Therefore, the Court emphasized that establishing a three-month period for an employee to apply to the court for the collection of wages and other payments due to the employee is contrary to the Constitution of Ukraine, as it leads to a de facto narrowing of the content and scope of constitutional rights guaranteed by Articles 43 and 55 of the Constitution of Ukraine, violates the guarantees of timely receipt of remuneration for work and deprives the employee of the real opportunity to effectively exercise the right to judicial protection, which contradicts Article 8.1, Article 43.7, and Article 55.1 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
The Court declared that Article 233.1 of the Code, which was found to be unconstitutional, shall cease to have effect from the date of delivery of this Decision by the Court.
