11 May 2023
Today, May 11, the Grand Chamber of the Court at the public part of the plenary session in the form of written proceedings deliberated the case upon the constitutional petition of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Article 75.4 of the Family Code (hereinafter referred to as the Code).
At the plenary session, the Judge-Rapporteur in the case Galyna Yurovska informed on the content of the constitutional petition and the grounds for initiating constitutional proceedings in the case.
The Judge-Rapporteur noted that the subject of the right to constitutional petition appealed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine with a petition to verify the compliance of Article 75.4 of the Code with Articles 3, 8, 48 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
According to Article 75.4 of the Code, „one of the spouses is considered to be in need of financial assistance if the salary, pension, income from the use of his/her property, and other income do not provide him/her with the subsistence level established by law“.
The author of the petition argues that „the appointment of a pension or other social benefit to a person with a disability cannot depend on payments made by one spouse for the maintenance of the other spouse who is a person with a disability. The fact that the state grants a disability pension cannot affect or exclude the fact that the court grants alimony for the maintenance of one of the spouses. The needs of a disabled person, as a rule, are not limited to the usual needs of a healthy person, therefore, they entail additional costs for treatment, rehabilitation, and nutrition, which is due to a different, different lifestyle of such a person“.
The Judge-Rapporteur informed that in order to ensure a full and objective consideration of the case and to make a reasoned decision, she had sent requests to the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Ministry of Social Policy of Ukraine, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, National University of Odesa Law Academy, Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University, Uzhgorod National University, Yurii Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University, as well as a member of the Research Advisory Council of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Inna Spasybo-Fateieva with a request to express position on the issues raised in the constitutional petition. The Court examined the case materials in the public part and proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session for a decision.
The plenary session of the Grand Chamber was attended by the representative of the subject of the right to constitutional petition, Head of the Department of Analytical and Legal Work of the Supreme Court Rasim Babanly, Permanent Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Maksym Dyrdin and Representative of the President of Ukraine to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Serhii Dembovskyi.
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”.
