Lawyers from the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights helped an IDP restore her pension payment

The termination of pensions for internally displaced persons and residents of uncontrolled territories is one of the most pressing and painful issues at the moment, because for the most part, due to their age and health, these people no longer have the strength to earn a living, so the pension is their only source of livelihood.

Being left without money in old age is one of the horror scenarios for many in this category. After all, after this there is only one way out – to try to survive in the occupied territory where lawlessness reigns and shelling has been going on for more than three years and people are dying.

Nevertheless, the bodies of the Pension Fund of Ukraine, guided by the norms of the Procedure for monitoring the implementation of social payments to internally displaced persons at the place of their actual residence/stay, approved by the PCMU No. 365 of 08.06.2016, terminate the accrual and payment of pensions for violation of the conditions for its receipt. For example, this may be an absence from the place of residence or registration, which is recorded when crossing the contact line in the ATO zone or the state border of Ukraine, when a person is outside the registration address specified in the displaced person’s certificate for more than 60 days.

Despite the constant criticism by the human rights community of the above-mentioned Procedure, the inconsistency of this regulatory act with other, higher legal force, such as the Constitution of Ukraine, the Laws of Ukraine “On Pension Provision”, “On Mandatory State Pension Insurance” and “On the Execution of Decisions and Application of the Practice of the European Court of Human Rights”, the Ukrainian government only complicates the lives of IDPs and does not respond in any way to signals about human rights violations from international organizations that care about human rights.

As a result of the current situation, in different regions of our country, lawyers of public organizations are helping IDP pensioners to appeal the actions of the Pension Fund of Ukraine. Another example is the case of IDP V., who was forced to leave her previous place of residence in Luhansk as a result of hostilities. The pensioner found refuge in Sumy, where since 2015 she has been registered and received her transferred old-age pension in the Sumy United Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine of Sumy region. As a result of the temporary departure to Luhansk, which she was forced to make, the woman’s certificate of registration as an internally displaced person was canceled, which in turn served as the basis for the termination of pension payments from 01.04.2017.

To protect her rights, the woman turned to the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights. Thus, on 10.04.2017, a request for public information was filed with the Sumy United Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine of Sumy region in the interests of the displaced woman. By letter dated 04/18/2017, in response to the above-mentioned appeal, the Sumy Joint Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine of Sumy region reported that, taking into account the written information of the State Border Guard Service, by the decision of the Commission for consideration of citizens’ applications on the issues of assigning (restoring) social payments to internally displaced persons of the Department of Social Protection of the Population of the Sumy City Council, a decision was made to terminate all types of social payments as an internally displaced person from the date of cancellation of the certificate of registration of an internally displaced person in accordance with subparagraph 4 of paragraph 12 of the Procedure for exercising control over the provision of social payments to internally displaced persons at the place of their actual residence/stay, approved by the PCMU No. 365 of 06/08/2016. After that, human rights activists of the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights prepared a lawsuit for the displaced person with demands to oblige the Sumy Joint Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine of Sumy region to resume the accrual and payment of pensions, as well as to pay arrears that arose from the time of termination of pension accrual and payment.

By the resolution of the Kovpakiv District Court of Sumy dated 06/27/2017, the claim was partially satisfied (reference to the court decision in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions: ).

By the court decision, the defendant was obliged to resume pension payment from the date of its termination and pay the arrears that arose. Currently, about ten more similar cases are being considered in the courts of the region.

The project’s lawyers also held another positive court decision, which was made on a similar claim prepared for another displaced pensioner, who applied to the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights to protect her violated rights. In this case, the Zarichny District Court of Sumy satisfied the claims in full, recognizing the actions of the territorial body of the Pension Fund of Ukraine regarding the termination of the accrual and payment of a pension to a person as unlawful and discriminatory and obliged the defendant to resume the accrual and payment of the pension, as well as to pay the debt that arose from the termination of the accrual and payment of the pension.

The project “Protecting the rights, reducing risks and strengthening humanitarian assistance to IDPs and the population affected by the conflict in Ukraine” is implemented by the Danish Refugee Council in partnership with the Chernihiv Public Committee for the Protection of Human Rights with financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).