On June 13, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine received a submission from 56 People's Deputies demanding that certain provisions of laws regarding the pension provision of deputies be recognized as unconstitutional. This presentation caused considerable resonance against the background of the current military and economic challenges in Ukraine.
If the court agrees, then the People's Deputies of the previous convocations will feel "improvement in life today" - and during the war they will receive an increase in their pensions! The current deputies, as if taking care of their predecessors, actually care about their fortunes, because among the signatories there are many elected officials who worked in past convocations, in particular, representatives of "Batkivshchyna" and OPZZH.
We will remind you that today former parliamentarians already receive four times more than the average Ukrainian pensioner.
In Ukraine, the maximum amount of a people's deputy's pension is about UAH 20,000 per month. At the same time, the average pension in the country is UAH 5.7 thousand.
In addition, in Ukraine, judges and prosecutors continue to receive special pensions - about 80-100 thousand UAH per month.
Letter of wishes
In the document, which was filigree written by politicians, clear accents are placed:
1) restore the right to recalculate pensions for people's deputies "in connection with the increase in salaries of the current people's deputies . This right was canceled by the Rada by adopting the law "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding Pension Increases", which became effective at the beginning of October 2017.
"If for people's deputies of Ukraine who acquired the right to pension after October 1, 2017, there are no violations of their constitutional labor rights (that is, the signatories do not dispute the legitimacy of the law itself), then the guarantees of these rights are obviously violated in relation to people's deputies of the I-VIII convocations , who acquired the right to pension before October 1, 2017," the authors of the constitutional submission convince.
2) "The restoration of social justice for people's deputies will not create an additional burden on the state budget . A group of initiative people's deputies calculated: during the years 1990-2017, 2,345 people received the mandate of a people's deputy. If we exclude deceased elected officials and those who have lost their citizenship, there will be about 1,100 people who claim to have their pensions recalculated.
"If we proceed from the fact that the average pension of a people's deputy, which he received under a special law, amounted to about 17.5 thousand hryvnias (this was equal to 10 subsistence minimums for persons who have lost their ability to work - "Glavkom") ... as of January 1 In 2024, it will amount to no more than 23.1 thousand hryvnias," the constitutional submission reads.
However, a part of the People's Deputies who sat in the "house under the dome" in the previous cadences care less about the well-being of their predecessor colleagues than about their own. In the text of the constitutional submission, the statement is made that, allegedly, the current people's deputies can refuse to recalculate pensions "for reasons of saving budget funds, since it is about the actual pension "self-limitation" for the future period." What can you say about the People's Deputies of the I-VIII convocations, whose pension rights suffered, according to the signatories, "of an obvious discriminatory and unconstitutional nature."
If the Constitutional Court approves the submission of the elected representatives, then the pensions of People's Deputies of the I-VIII convocations will increase from UAH 17.5 thousand to UAH 23.1 thousand
Pavlo Rozenko, Minister of Social Policy in 2014-2016 and Deputy Prime Minister in 2016-2019, in a conversation with "Glavkom" called the initiative of 56 People's Deputies the height of absurdity. The former government official considers it absurd that people's deputies are fighting for their own interests when the current government wants to freeze salary increases for state employees and other social benefits for the next three years.
Rozenko noted: as the Minister of Social Policy, he drafted the law "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding Pension Increases", the norms of which the current elected representatives are trying to declare unconstitutional.
"The document passed all parliamentary committees and was brought to the session hall for voting. This is not about taking something from someone. It is about the unified system of pension provision in Ukraine. One for all, without special pensions. Because how to explain to people what is the justice of the fact that a teacher, a doctor or a turner has one pension system, and a people's deputy for some reason has a separate privileged pension system? Especially since the work of a people's deputy is no more risky or difficult than the work of a teacher or a doctor. Forgive me, but the constitutional presentation of the group of deputies smacks of Sovietism," Rozenko is convinced.
According to the ex-minister, now the maximum amount of a people's deputy's pension is about UAH 20,000 per month. At the same time, the pension of a people's deputy of the IX convocation who has reached retirement age will be lower than that of his colleagues in the parliament of the I-VIII term.
"I'll repeat: since October 2017, when the law "On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Regarding the Increase of Pensions" entered into force, uniform rules for calculating pensions have been in effect. The size of the pension is determined according to a certain formula: total length of service; the amount of paid pension contributions; the average salary in the country's economy over the past five years, etc. Therefore, the pension of the people's deputy of the 9th convocation will definitely be lower than the one received by the people's deputies of the 1st-8th convocations, whose pensions were calculated according to the old law, when a specific percentage of the salary of the elected official at that time was taken as the basis," Pavlo Rozenko clarified.
The ex-minister assumed: if the Constitutional Court recognizes as unconstitutional the legal norm by which the pension provision of people's deputies is carried out under the law on mandatory state pension insurance, then this will upset the balance and may lead to social tension among Ukrainians. And this will definitely play into Russia's hands, Rozenko suggests.
Andriy Reva, Minister of Social Policy in 2016-2019, in an interview with "Glavkom" recalls: until 2015, 15 laws were in force in Ukraine, according to which special pensions were assigned and their recalculation was carried out. One of them was the Law of Ukraine "On the Status of People's Deputy of Ukraine". At the same time, as the former high-ranking official noted, people's deputies paid the same amount of single social contribution to the Pension Fund as ordinary citizens. However, they received a pension many times larger than the pension of ordinary citizens. For the same indicators of seniority and earnings.
Reva emphasized: pension provision should be based on general principles. It cannot be the case that the amount of the pension depends not on how much a person pays contributions, but on what position he holds.
"Therefore, first in 2015, the special pensions of people's deputies were canceled, and in 2017, their indexation was stopped. Currently, people's deputies of the I-VIII convocations have a choice: either to refuse special pensions, the average amount of which is UAH 17.5 thousand per month and which was appointed until October 2017, when the new law came into force, and to switch to payments, according to the law on mandatory state pension insurance, according to which pensions are indexed annually. However, it is not profitable for people's deputies of previous convocations to do this, because then they will receive less than if they had a special pension. Today, they are trying through the Constitutional Court to restore the indexation of special pensions - up to UAH 23.6 thousand per month. To what extent this is correct and fair in a country that is waging a war, where the average pension is slightly more than 5.7 thousand UAH, and the minimum is 2.3 thousand UAH, let the people judge," said the former Minister of Social Policy.
Your shirt
Let's see who from the "56" group, who were People's Deputies of previous convocations and still remain, receives pensions and what their amount is. For example, the current representative of "Batkivshchyna" (leader Yulia Tymoshenko), former People's Deputy of the 8th convocation, and even earlier known as an oligarch from Donbas, Serhiy Taruta, declared a pension of UAH 240.9 thousand for 2023. Approximately, he received UAH 20,000 per month.
His faction colleague, political elder Ivan Kyrylenko, received a pension of UAH 212,400 last year (or UAH 17,700 per month).
Another representative of the "Batkivshchyna" VO Mykhailo Volynets had a pension of UAH 200.1 thousand per year (UAH 16.6 thousand per month).
Another parliamentarian with seniority, and now elected from the banned "Opposition Platform - For Life" (co-chairs were Yuriy Boyko and Vadim Rabinovych), Yuriy Ioffe, declared a pension of UAH 251.1 thousand (UAH 20.9 thousand per month) last year.
Mykhailo Papiev , a former "regionalist" who before the invasion was in the ranks of the OPZZH, announced a pension of UAH 226,600 for 2023 (UAH 18,800 per month).
Vasyl Nimchenko, a native of OPZZ . He receives a pension as a retired judge of the Constitutional Court. In particular, last year Nimchenko declared a pension of UAH 2.2 million! In 2024, the politician will declare a monthly pension of UAH 192,100. He is also among the signatories of the "retirement" constitutional petition.
In a comment to Glavkom, People's Deputy of the 4th convocation and honored lawyer Vitaly Oluyko noted that the issue of recalculating pensions for politicians is not timely. In his opinion, a comprehensive reform of all pensions is needed, but after the end of the war.
"This is not a legal issue, but a moral one. Ukraine is being torn apart from different sides: sometimes by the hostile aggressor Russia, sometimes by collaborators, sometimes by corrupt people. 56 people's deputies also decided to make their "contribution". How can you sign this constitutional proposal, knowing that your country is bleeding? A paradox emerges! After all, a people's deputy by his status is a state politician, and as a result, they lack a statesman's position and a shred of conscience," the former elected official is indignant.
The Foreign Minister reminded that in the conditions of a full-scale invasion, more than 60% of the expenses of the state budget of Ukraine are financed by international donors (mainly the USA and the EU).
A way out of the difficult situation, Oluyko believes, may be the postponement of consideration of the people's deputies' submission by the Constitutional Court. This is a familiar technique for this institution: it considers constitutional submissions that have a public resonance for years, and delays the adoption of final decisions.
Conflict of interest: was there?
Andriy Reva, an ex-government official, made interesting observations. He insists: the constitutional submission concerns a specific material interest - the renewal of the previous order of indexation of pensions for people's deputies of the I-VIII convocations.
"Let me remind you that the European Court of Human Rights recognized the pension as "property". That is, some people's deputies who signed this submission have a conflict of interest. Did they report such a conflict before signing this constitutional submission?" - asked the ex-minister with a rhetorical question.
On the other hand, the head of the National Agency for the Prevention of Corruption in 2020-2024, Oleksandr Novikov, did not see 100% violation of corruption legislation.
"What does the concept of "conflict of interest" mean? This is the use of authority against the interests of the service to satisfy a private interest. That is, private interest is present, powers have been used. However, the criterion "contradiction between a person's private interest and his official or representative authority" is missing. After all, the people's deputy, as the subject of the submission, has, in fact, fulfilled the law, which allows him to turn to the Constitutional Court for interpretation. And the final decision will be made by Themis. Therefore, there is no complete set of criteria by which it is possible to classify the assumption of a real conflict of interest," he told Glavkom.
The political "geography" is striking in this "pension" saga. The first signatures to the constitutional submission were made by people from the "Batkivshchyna" faction. Then, representatives of the banned OPZZ unexpectedly stood on their shoulders. They completed the picture with the assembly of People's Deputies from "Servant of the People".
By the way, off the record, one of the "servants", who did not sign the constitutional submission, concluded while discussing the level of financial support of people's deputies with "Glavkom": "The question is rhetorical: if you want an effective deputy, he needs normal salaries, including and assistants. Plus "grandmothers" for maintenance of waiting rooms, gasoline, etc. If you want a worm - well, please, there are most of them in the Council."
