Today, December 22, the First Senate of the Court in the public part of the plenary session in the form of written proceedings deliberated the case upon the constitutional complaint of Volodymyr Zhydenko on the constitutionality of certain provisions of Article 2 of the Law of Ukraine “On Measures on Legislative Provision of Pension System Reforms” of July 8, 2011 No. 3668-VI (hereinafter referred to as “the Law”).
During the plenary session, Judge-Rapporteur in the case Oleksandr Lytvynov presented the content of the constitutional complaint and the grounds for initiating constitutional proceedings in the case.
He noted that the subject of the right to constitutional complaint requests to declare Article 2 of the Law as unconstitutional in terms of extending its effect to the Law of Ukraine “On Pensions for Discharged Persons from Military Service and Certain Other Persons” of April 9, 1992 No. 2262-XII.
According to Article 2 of the Law “Maximum amount of pension <…> (including allowances, increases, supplementary pensions, targeted cash benefits, pensions for special services to Ukraine, indexation and other pension supplements established by law, except for supplements to certain categories of persons with special merits before the Motherland <…> may not exceed ten subsistence minimums established for persons who have lost their ability to work. Temporarily, until December 31, 2017, the maximum amount of pension <…> (including allowances, increases, supplementary pensions, targeted cash benefits, pensions for special services to Ukraine, indexation and other pension supplements established by law, except for supplements to certain categories of persons with special merits before the Motherland) <…> may not exceed 10740 hryvnias”.
According to the author of the petition, the disputed provisions of the Law contradict Articles 8.2, 17.5, 22.3, 46.1 and 46.2 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
The Judge-Rapporteur informed that in order to prepare the case for deliberation at the plenary session of the First Senate, inquiries had been sent to the President of Ukraine, the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for Human Rights, as well as to the Ministry of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, the Ministry of Defence of Ukraine, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine.
In order to outline scientific approaches to resolving the issues raised in the constitutional complaint, letters
of inquiry were sent to the Vasyl Stus Donetsk National University, the National University «Odessa Academy of Law», and the V.M. Koretsky Institute of State and Law of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine.
After examining the case file in the public part of the plenary session, the Court proceeded to the in-camera part for a decision.
The public part of the plenary session was attended by the subject of the right to a constitutional complaint Volodymyr Zhydenko, the representative of the President of Ukraine in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Fedir Venislavskyi.
The public part of the plenary session is available on the Court's official website under the heading “Archive of video broadcasts of the sessions”.
