Legal news in Ukraine: ECHR ruling on Ukrainian lustration law is in effect, Constitutional Court invalidates restriction of benefits for veterans and will consider case on verification of public payments, procedure for returning court fee can be changed

The ECtHR ruling on lustration of Ukrainian officials is in effect

The ruling of the European Court of Human Rights on the violation of the rights of Ukrainian officials, who were released in accordance with the Law on Purification of Power, is in force.

The Grand Chamber of the ECtHR rejected the Ukrainian side's appeal for the decision, so it came into force. This decision is final.

It is worth recalling that on October 17, 2019, the European Court of Human Rights issued a ruling on the Ukrainian lustration law. It stated that the Ukrainian law «On Purification of Power» violated the rights of Ukrainian officials.

According to the court, the Law on Purification applied to a very wide range of persons and led to the dismissal of applicants only on the ground that they had held public office for more than a year during the presidency of Viktor Yanukovych, or on the basis of holding positions in the Communist Party before 1991.

«So, this law did not take into account the personal role that the applicants played, as well as whether they were personally associated with any undemocratic activities that took place during the reign of the former president. In this regard, the Ukrainian Law on the purification of power differs from the lustration procedures that were introduced in other states of Central and Eastern Europe and which were more and narrowly targeted», the decision says.

The Constitutional Court invalidates restriction of benefits for veterans

On February 27, 2020, the Constitutional Court of Ukraine adopted a decision in the case on the constitutional representation of 46 people's deputies of Ukraine regarding the restriction of benefits for war veterans and other persons.

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine declared unconstitutional the separate provision of paragraph 26 of section VI «Final and transitional provisions» of the Budget Code of Ukraine in the part that provides that the rules and provisions of articles 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 of the Law of Ukraine «On the status of war veterans, their guarantees of social protection» No. 3551-XII are applied based on the available financial resources of the state and local budgets and the budgets of funds of compulsory state social insurance.

The specified provisions of Law No. 3551 provide benefits to participants in hostilities and persons equated to them (Article 12), persons with disabilities due to war (Article 13), participants in the war (Article 14), persons covered by Law No. 3551 (Article 15) and persons who have special merits before the Motherland (Article 16).

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine emphasized that the state cannot unilaterally waive the obligation of social protection of persons who have already fulfilled their duty to the state to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time, the failure of the state to fulfill its social obligations to war veterans, the persons covered by Law No. 3551, undermines confidence in the state.

The Constitutional Court will consider an appeal against the law on verification of public payments

The Constitutional Court of Ukraine received the constitutional petition of 54 People’s Deputies of Ukraine regarding the constitutionality of a number of provisions of 12 laws of Ukraine regarding the receipt and processing of personal data and the implementation of verification and monitoring of state payments.

Deputies are asked to declare unconstitutional separate rules in order to «ensure constitutional order, respect for the rule of law, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms».

Among the disputed are the norms of the Law «On Verification and Monitoring of State Payments».

According to the law, the actual legitimate aim of verification is to find out information about the presence or absence of reasons for the purpose of payment or its size, and also to prevent the payment from being assigned inappropriately.

The deputies believe that the law does not meet this legitimate goal, and the consequences that are achieved through verification of state payments are incommensurable with violations of the rights of millions of Ukrainian. «We can say that the legitimate purpose of verification, stated in Law No. 324, and one of its elements, processing confidential information without the consent of a person, is not consistent with any of the three public interests specified in the second part of Article 32 of the Constitution of Ukraine: national security, economic welfare , human rights. Therefore, the disputed provisions of the laws on the authority of the Ministry of Finance to process personal data and access to registers, automated information systems, databases without the consent of individuals are unconstitutional», they stated.

According to the law, verification of personal data should be carried out constantly or periodically for most citizens, regardless of whether there is any doubt about the accuracy of the information they provide. «And such legislative regulation means limiting the rights of most citizens, not for the rights of other citizens, but for the meager saving of meager means», the complainants said.

Thus, in 2017, after a review of 71 billion UAH of housing subsidies, violations were found for only 3.1 million. So the economic effect of such a check amounted to only 0.004% of expenses.

The procedure for returning the court fee is proposed to be changed

On February 17, 2020, a draft law of the Law No. 3071 «On Amendments to Article 139 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine» was registered in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The draft law provides for amendments and additions to the second and third parts of Article 139 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine regarding the return of the court fee (or its proportional part in accordance with the volume of satisfied claims) to the plaintiff in case the court satisfies the claim (its part) regardless of the status of the plaintiff (body authority, business entity, individual, etc.).

«The draft Law is designed to put into practice the principle of the equality of all participants in the trial before the law and the court in accordance with Article 129 of the Constitution of Ukraine and clause 2 of part three of Article 2 of the Administrative Procedure Code of Ukraine, which, in particular, will help reduce the financial burden on the state budget and raising the level of legal and civic consciousness of business entities in compliance with legal requirements, especially those that result in violations, threatening life and health of the people to her», the explanatory note says.