Background
Pavel Pozdnyakov, a Ukrainian pensioner who continued working, obtained a 2011 judgment requiring the Krasnodon branch of the State Pension Fund to recalculate his pension using the average wage for 2009. The judgment was enforced, and he began receiving the higher pension.
After moving to Myrgorod in October 2011, his pension file was transferred to another branch of the same State Pension Fund. That branch resumed paying the lower amount. A local court ordered payment of the resulting arrears, which the applicant received, but an appellate court later quashed that decision and terminated the proceedings on the ground that pension recalculation had already been decided in the 2011 case.
The applicant complained that the appellate court had denied him access to a court and that the 2011 judgment had not been enforced. In February 2012, the decree providing the recalculation mechanism underlying the 2011 judgment was repealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Court unanimously found a violation of Article 6 § 1. The 2012 claim was not identical to the 2011 claim: the earlier proceedings concerned recalculation by the Krasnodon branch, while the later proceedings concerned the failure of the Myrgorod branch to continue complying with the judgment after the applicant moved.
The appellate court failed to address that claim on its merits, impairing the essence of the applicant’s right of access to a court. The Court considered that, because the two branches belonged to the same State Pension Fund, the applicant was not required to take further steps to notify bailiffs that his pension file had moved.
The Court declared the non-enforcement and Article 13 complaints inadmissible as manifestly ill-founded. A judicial pension decision did not guarantee entitlement despite subsequent legislative change, and the applicant had received the recalculated amount for the period from October 2011 to April 2012. The Court awarded EUR 1,500 for non-pecuniary damage and rejected the claims for pecuniary damage and costs.
Key Takeaways
- A court cannot treat a later enforcement-related claim as duplicative where it concerns a different pension-fund branch and a distinct alleged failure to comply with an earlier judgment.
- Administrative transfer of a pension file within one public organisation did not require the pensioner to take additional steps to preserve access to judicial review.
- A pension-recalculation judgment does not shield a beneficiary from prospective legislative changes to the pension scheme.
Why It Matters
The judgment distinguishes between a substantive entitlement decided in earlier litigation and a later claim that a public authority has failed to give effect to that decision. Domestic courts must examine the latter claim rather than dismiss it mechanically as already decided.
It also confirms that Article 6 access-to-court protection does not convert a pension judgment into a permanent guarantee against lawful future changes to the governing pension rules.