10 November 2025

 

On 5 November 2025, during the public part of the plenary session, the Second Senate deliberated, in the form of written proceedings, the case upon the constitutional complaint of Petro Masyuk regarding the constitutionality of subparagraph 16 of paragraph 1 of Section I of the Law of Ukraine No. 2352-IX “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding the Optimisation of Labour Relations” dated 1 July 2022.

During the plenary session, the Judge-Rapporteur in the case, Vasyl Lemak, judge of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine, presented the content of the constitutional complaint and the applicant's arguments.

The Judge-Rapporteur noted that the Second Panel of Judges of the Second Senate, by its ruling of 4 September 2025, initiated constitutional proceedings in this case, determining that the subject of constitutional review in this case is a separate provision of Article 117.1 of the Labor Code of Ukraine (hereinafter, the “Code”) regarding the limitation of liability for delay in settlement upon dismissal of an employee, namely: “but not more than six months”, as well as a separate provision of Article 117.2 of the Code, namely: “but not more than the period established by part one of this article”.

The content of the constitutional complaint and the documents and materials attached to it reveal the following.

Petro Masyuk served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. By order of the commander, he was discharged from military service to the reserve due to his state of health.

He filed an administrative lawsuit against the military units, requesting that their failure to make a timely and full settlement with him upon his discharge from military service be declared unlawful, and also requested that the military unit pay him the average earnings for the period of delay in settlement upon his discharge.

The court of first instance denied his claim, and the court of appeals upheld the decision of the court of first instance. Disagreeing with these court decisions, Petro Masyuk appealed them in cassation. The Supreme Court, composed of a panel of judges of the Administrative Court of Cassation, ruled to refuse to open cassation proceedings.

In the opinion of the author of the petition, the contested legislative provisions contradict the requirements of a number of provisions of the Constitution of Ukraine, in particular, the principles of the rule of law (Article 8.1), the provision by the state of social protection for citizens of Ukraine serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations, as well as members of their families (Article 17.5), equality before the law (Article 21), protection by law of the right to timely remuneration for work (Article 43.7), ensuring a sufficient and decent standard of living (Article 48), and the guaranteed right to judicial protection (Article 55.1).

The Judge-Rapporteur informed that in order to ensure a full and objective deliberation of the case and the delivery of justified decision by the Court, he had sent requests to in particular, to the President of Ukraine, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, a number of ministries, as well as to scientific institutions and higher education establishments. The judges will be informed of the content of the positions expressed in the in-camera part of the plenary session.

After examining the case materials in the public part of the plenary session, the Court proceeded to the in-camera deliberations for a decision.

The video recording of the plenary session is available on the Court’s official website in the Section “Archive of Video Broadcasts of Sessions”.