COURT WITH PENSION FUND OF UKRAINE

As you know, the Pension Fund of Ukraine is a powerful body of the central executive power, whose activities are directed and coordinated by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine through the Minister of Social Policy, which implements the state policy on pension provision and keeping records of persons subject to mandatory state social insurance.

In accordance with the assigned tasks and functions, it is the Pension Fund of Ukraine that is the subject of authority in the field of legal relations regarding the appointment (recalculation) and payment of pensions, monthly life-long stipends for retired judges and other payments, and disputes arising between the participants of these relations, are public law, therefore, according to the requirements of Part 2 of Article 4 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine, their resolution belongs to the jurisdiction of administrative courts.

The Pension Fund of Ukraine operates through the Central Administrations in the regions subordinate to it, and apparently, the above-mentioned “state machine” statistically occupies one of the leading positions in the categories of disputes between the Claimants and the central bodies of the executive power in the courts. However, as specialists in pension issues, this does not surprise us at all, because in our personal opinion, the PFU authorities act on the principle of “see you in court”, which significantly delays the process of restoring the violated pensioner’s rights.

The most relevant categories of cases regarding the appeal of actions of PFU bodies

Conventionally, disputes regarding military, state and civil should be divided.

The following categories of cases should be included in “military pension” disputes:

• refusal to transfer a military pension based on updated certificates;
• refusal to transfer the military pension in the appropriate percentage ratio;
• refusal to transfer the military pension without limiting the maximum amount of the pension;
• refusal to return the additional payment for military pensioners in the amount of UAH 2,000;
• refusal to assign a military pension (calendar and preferential assignment).

Civil pension disputes should include:

• refusal to grant a pension (not taking into account seniority, inconsistency of entries in the work book);
• refusal to transfer from an old-age pension to a civil servant’s pension under the “old” Law;
• refusal to assign an additional payment for living in zones 2 and 3 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and many other issues.

Court with the Pension Fund of Ukraine: what actions are we taking?

After a thorough study of each Client’s situation, we recommend the most effective option for solving his problem, which may be the following actions:

• submission of a lawyer’s request;
• writing a statement to the authorized body of the PFU to provide explanations for each situation;
• and finally a full package of services (collection of the entire evidence base) preparation and submission of an administrative lawsuit to the court.

As a conclusion from the extensive practice of the Law Office “Prikhodko&Partners”, the actions of the PFU authorities through their Head Offices in most cases are aimed at refusing any issue related to the improvement of the pension provision of pensioners and it is not necessary to stop at this stage, because according to judicial practice , the courts of first instance satisfy the claims of the Plaintiffs and any violations can be restored only in court and on the basis of a court decision that has entered into force.

Lawyers of the “Prikhodko&Partners” Law Firm on pension matters have sufficient experience and a level of competence to provide you with advice and offer an effective algorithm of actions to solve your problem.