On Thursday, 14 November 2024, the Grand Chamber, at the public part of the plenary session, commenced deliberation in the form of written proceedings upon the constitutional petition of the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Article 233.1 of the Labour Code of Ukraine (hereinafter, the “Code”).
According to the Judge-Rapporteur in the case, Galyna Yurovska, the Supreme Court appealed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to verify the compliance of the disputed provision of the Code according to which “an employee may apply for the resolution of a labour dispute directly to the court within three months from the date when he or she learned or should have learned of the violation of his or her right, except in cases provided for in part two of this Article” with Articles 22.3, 43.7, 55.1 of the Constitution of Ukraine,.
The author of the petition states that the legislator, “by limiting the right of an employee to apply to the court for the recovery of wages due to him/her for a period of three months, without providing the employee with guarantees that the court will deliberate the issue of renewal of the term for applying to the court, has reduced the level of access to the court for persons who are the subjects of an application for recovery of wage arrears, thereby allowing the narrowing of the content and scope of the existing constitutional rights of employees to apply to the court for the recovery of wages due to them”.
The judge-rapporteur informed that in order to ensure a full and objective deliberation of the case and to ensure that the Court delivers a reasoned decision, letters of inquiry were sent to the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, scientific institutions, higher education establishments, and the Scientific and Advisory Council of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to express their opinions on the issues raised in the constitutional petition.
The Court examined the case file and proceeded to the in-camera part of the plenary session.
The plenary session was attended by a representative of the subject of the right to constitutional petition, First Deputy Chief of Staff of the Supreme Court Rasim Babanly and Permanent Representative of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine at the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Maksym Dyrdin.
The video recording of the plenary session is available on the official website of the Court in the section “Archive of Video Broadcasts of Sessions”.
