The subject matter of this dispute is the unlawful omission of a state authority, which consisted in the refusal to issue to a pensioner discharged from service updated certificates on the amount of his financial allowance as of 2020–2025 for pension recalculation taking into account the increase in the subsistence minimum.
The Court noted that for the proper calculation of pensions of former military servicemen and employees of law enforcement agencies, the base for determining basic salaries must be the current subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons as of January 1 of the respective calendar year. **** At the same time, the Supreme Court, sitting as the Judicial Chamber for Cases concerning the Protection of Social Rights, departed from its previous legal positions of 2024–2025, which erroneously allowed limiting the calculated value of basic salaries to a fixed amount of 1,762 hryvnias. The judges emphasized that the governmental amendments introduced by Resolution No. 481, which attempted to “freeze” this calculated value, are not applicable to the disputed legal relations for 2024 and 2025. Instead, the original version of Resolution No. 704 of the Cabinet of Ministers, which directly links the amount of financial allowance to the actual subsistence minimum established by the law on the state budget for the respective year, takes precedence. Thus, the increase of the subsistence minimum to 3,028 hryvnias in 2024 and 2025 is a lawful ground for modifying the pension amount and requires the issuance of new certificates. The Court established that the defendant’s refusal to issue such documents for all years, including 2024 and 2025, violates the plaintiff’s constitutional right to adequate social security.
The Supreme Court fully satisfied the plaintiff’s cassation appeal, reversed the decisions of the lower courts in the part concerning the refusal, and ordered the state authority to issue updated certificates of financial allowance for all disputed years, including 2024 and 2025.
