Background
Vira Borovyk and Lyubov Toporkova were Ukrainian pensioners living in the Donetsk region when armed hostilities began in 2014. Ukraine suspended pension and other social-benefit payments in areas outside government control after postal and financial operations there ceased. To resume payments, residents were required to relocate to government-controlled territory, register as internally displaced persons, and apply to the relevant pension authority.
The applicants did not relocate. They submitted medical evidence showing that age and serious illnesses substantially limited their mobility: Borovyk was receiving inpatient treatment for chronic salpingitis and endometrial cancer, while Toporkova had chronic cerebral atherosclerosis and profound hemiparesis requiring constant care. Their pensions, their sole means of subsistence, remained suspended for years. Domestic courts dismissed their challenges. Both applicants died while the Strasbourg proceedings were pending; the Court allowed their son and niece respectively to continue the cases.
The Court’s Holding
The Court unanimously held that Ukraine violated Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The suspension of payments was an interference with the applicants’ possessions, assessed as control of the use of property. The Court accepted that the requirement to relocate and register as an internally displaced person pursued a legitimate public-interest aim—national security and public safety—because the authorities were objectively unable to administer pensions in territory outside government control.
But the interference was not proportionate. The applicants’ pensions were their only means of support, and reliable medical evidence established that they could not realistically satisfy the relocation requirement. For a prolonged period, relocation and IDP registration were the only route to resumed payments; Ukraine offered no less intrusive alternative until uniform pension-access conditions were introduced in March 2025. The Court also was not persuaded that the lawfulness requirement had been fully met, noting that domestic courts had not squarely addressed the applicants’ arguments about the relationship between the pension statute and subordinate regulations. Having resolved the property-rights issue, it found no need to examine the Article 14 discrimination complaint.
Key Takeaways
- A State may pursue legitimate security and administrative aims when conflict prevents pension payments in territory outside its control.
- Suspending a pensioner’s sole means of subsistence is disproportionate where serious health conditions make the required relocation realistically impossible.
- Authorities must consider workable, less burdensome alternatives; leaving vulnerable pensioners without one for years breaches Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
Why It Matters
The judgment confirms that the practical inability to deliver benefits in conflict-affected territory does not eliminate Convention scrutiny. Measures designed for administrability may still impose an excessive individual burden on pensioners who cannot relocate because of age, disability, or illness.
The Court awarded each applicant’s heirs EUR 4,000 for pecuniary damage, reflecting lost opportunity to use pensions earlier rather than pension arrears themselves, and EUR 6,000 for non-pecuniary damage.