2 December, 2024
On Monday, 2 December 2024, the Second Senate of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine (hereinafter, the “Court”) at the public part of the plenary session deliberated the case upon the constitutional complaints of Liliia Lytvynova and Ludmyla Kovalchuk regarding the constitutionality of paragraph 3 of Section II “Final and Transitional Provisions” of the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine” No. 1774-VIII dated 6 December 2016 (hereinafter, “Law No. 1774”).
The judge-rapporteur in this case, Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Vasyl Lemak, noted that the cases were consolidated into one constitutional proceeding given that the constitutional complaints concerned the same issue.
The complainants applied to the Court with requests to verify whether paragraph 3 of Section II “Final and Transitional Provisions” of Law No. 1774 complied with the requirements of Articles 1, 3, 6.2, 8.2, 16, 19, 19.2, 21, 22, 24.1, 24.2, 41.1, 41.4, 46.1, 46.3, 50.1 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
According to paragraph 3 of Section II “Final and Transitional Provisions” of Law No. 1774, “after the entry into force of this Law, the minimum wage shall not be applied as a calculation value for determining official salaries and wages of employees and other payments, except for the calculation of the annual amount of funding for the statutory activities of political parties” (paragraph one); “until amendments are introduced to the laws of Ukraine regarding the non-application of the minimum wage as a calculation value, it shall be applied in the amount of the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons established as of January 1 of the calendar year, starting from
January 1, 2017” (paragraph two).
According to the authors of the petitions, as a result of the application of paragraph 3 of Section II “Final and Transitional Provisions” of Law No. 1774, the guaranteed amount of the pension supplement was actually reduced by more than two and a half times, and therefore the disputed provisions violated their constitutional rights, namely the right to property, the right to social protection, as well as the right to a safe environment for life and health and to compensation for damage guaranteed by the provisions of Articles 41.4, 46.1, 46.3, 50.1 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
They also argue that the disputed provisions of Law No. 1774 do not comply with Articles 21, 24.1, 24.2 of the Constitution of Ukraine, as they put them in an unequal position compared to other pensioners who do not work and live in the radioactive contamination zone and are entitled to pension increases.
During the plenary session, the judge-rapporteur also informed that the Court has a number of cases pending on the same issue. The judge also said that in order to ensure a full and objective deliberation of the case, he had sent inquiries to government institutions and higher education establishments with a request to express their positions on the issues raised in the constitutional complaints. The content of the judges' responses will be reported in detail at the in-camera part of the Court's plenary session.
In this case, the Court proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session.
The plenary session is available on the official website of the Court in the section “Archive of video broadcasts of sessions”.
