On October 25, at the public part of the plenary session, the Second Senate began consideration of the case upon the constitutional complaint of Vasyl Atamanchuk in the form of written proceedings.
According to the Judge-Rapporteur in the case, Serhiy Holovaty, the applicant requested the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to verify the constitutionality of certain provisions of Article 2 of the Law of Ukraine No. 3668-VI “On Measures to Legislatively Ensure the Reform of the Pension System” dated July 8, 2011, as amended. The latter stipulates that “the maximum amount of pension (except for pension payments made from the Accumulative Pension Fund) <...> (including allowances, increases, additional pension, targeted financial assistance, pension for special services to Ukraine, indexation and other pension supplements established by law, except for supplementary payments to certain categories of persons who have special services to the Motherland), granted (recalculated) in accordance with <... > the laws of Ukraine <...> “On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chornobyl Catastrophe” <...> may not exceed ten subsistence minimums established for persons who have lost their working capacity”.
The author of the complaint also requests to verify the constitutionality of the first sentence of Article 67.3 of the Law of Ukraine No. 796-XII “On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chornobyl Catastrophe” dated February 28, 1991, as amended (hereinafter referred to as Law No. 796). According to these provisions, “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 who have special services to the Motherland) may not exceed ten subsistence minimums established for persons who have lost their working capacity”.
The following can be seen from the content of the constitutional complaint and the materials attached to it. The complainant, who is a person with a Group II disability as a result of performing military service duties to eliminate the consequences of the Chornobyl catastrophe, was granted a pension in 1993 in accordance with Article 54 of Law No. 796 as amended by Law of Ukraine No. 3285-XII “On Amendments to Article 54 of the Law of Ukraine “On the Status and Social Protection of Citizens Affected by the Chornobyl Catastrophe” dated June 17, 1993 (hereinafter referred to as Law No. 3285) in the amount of compensation for actual damages – 70 percent of his earnings for work in the exclusion zone.
In 2022, he filed an administrative claim with the first instance court, requesting, inter alia, that the defendant (the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast) be required to pay him a disability pension in accordance with Article 54.1 of Law No. 796 in the version in force at the time of his pension award, namely, in the amount of compensation for actual damages with a degree of disability of 70% for his work in the exclusion zone. The court dismissed his claim. In its decision, the court noted, in particular, that the recalculation of the pension with a limit on its maximum amount was legal and reasonable and did not lead to a reduction in the amount of the pension the applicant received.
The Administrative Court of Appeal agreed with the conclusions of the first instance court, dismissed Vasyl Atamanchuk’s complaint, and left the court’s decision unchanged. When reviewing the case in cassation, the Supreme Court refused to initiate cassation proceedings on the applicant’s cassation appeal.
The author of the complaint believes that the impugned legislative provisions do not comply with a number of provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine. In his constitutional complaint, he cites Article 54.1 of Law No. 796, as amended by Law No. 3285, which was in force at the time of his pension granting. According to this article, namely, pensions for disability resulting from injury or illness are granted upon request of a citizen from the earnings received for work in the exclusion zone in 1986–1990, in the amount of compensation for actual damages determined in accordance with the law, without limitation, which, in his opinion, constituted for military personnel – participants in the liquidation of the consequences of the Chornobyl accident, who were diagnosed with a disability as a result of this disaster, state guarantees for the calculation and payment of pensions in the amount of compensation for factual losses.
The Court considered the case file in the public part of the plenary session and proceeded to the in-camera part to deliver its decision.
The public part of the plenary session was attended by the subject of the constitutional complaint Vasyl Atamanchuk and the Permanent Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine in the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Maksym Dyrdin.
The public part of the plenary session can be viewed on the official website of the Court in the section “Archive of video broadcasts of sessions”.
