On November 8, 2023, the Second Senate, in the public part of the plenary session, in the form of written proceedings, commenced deliberation of the case upon the constitutional complaint of Viktor Soroka regarding the constitutionality of paragraph 1.17 of Section I of the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Optimisation of Labour Relations” No. 2352-IX dated July 1, 2022 in conjunction with Article 119.3 of the Labour Code of Ukraine.
During the plenary session, the judge-rapporteur in the case, the Judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Vasyl Lemak, informed that Viktor Soroka appealed to the Constitutional Court of Ukraine to verify the constitutionality of paragraph 1.17 of Section I of the Law of Ukraine “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Optimisation of Labour Relations” dated July 1, 2022 No. 2352-IX (hereinafter referred to as “Law No. 2352”) in conjunction with Article 119.3 of the Labour Code of Ukraine (hereinafter referred to as “the Code”).
Paragraph 1.17 of Section I of Law No. 2352 amended the Code, namely: “in Article 119.3, the words “the place of work, position and average earnings are preserved” shall be replaced by the words “the place of work and the position are preserved”.
According to Article 119.3 of the Code “for employees called up for term military service, military service by conscription of officers, military service by conscription during mobilization, for a special period, military service by conscription of reservists in a special period or accepted for military service under a contract, including by concluding a new contract for military service, during the validity of the special period for the period until its end or until the day of actual release, the place of work and position at the enterprise, institution, organization, farm, agricultural production cooperative, regardless of subordination and form of ownership, and to individuals - entrepreneurs, in which they worked during the draft, shall be preserved. Such employees shall be paid financial support at the expense of the State Budget of Ukraine in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On Social and Legal Protection of Servicemen and Members of Their Families”.
The subject of the right to a constitutional complaint requests to verify the disputed provisions of Law No. 2352 and the Code for compliance with the provisions of Articles 8.1, 17.5, 22.2, 22.3 and 64 of the Constitution of Ukraine.
Vasyl Lemak also informed that in order to ensure a full and objective deliberation of the case and delivering of a reasoned decision by the Court, he drew up requests to a number of bodies of state power, scientific institutions, and higher education establishments to provide opinions on the issues raised in the constitutional complaint.
After examining the case materials in the public part of the plenary session, the Court proceeded to the in-camera part for a decision.
Viktor Soroka, subject of the right to a constitutional complaint, attended the public 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”.
