In Ukraine, PFUs spend almost UAH 10 billion monthly on “special” pensions from the budget of financial institutions. These are payments to judges, prosecutors, some military personnel, and the like. While ordinary Ukrainians receive an average monthly pension of only 5.6 thousand UAH, the size of the largest special pension is 390 thousand UAH per month.
Such pensions are assigned through the courts. What’s interesting is that judges themselves often use this scheme. As we managed to find out, it was the “servants of Themis” who won the largest sums from the Pension Fund in the courts. Some of them became millionaires thanks to these decisions. At least five solutions - in the amount of UAH 5 million. We are not talking about a monthly payment, but about a retroactive recalculation.
Read about who receives the largest pensions and how millions are won in court against the Pension Fund.
Judge Oksenenko awarded UAH 17 million in pensions: this is an absolute record for Ukraine
Oleg Oksenenko, judge of the Sixth Administrative Court of Appeal, according to the declaration, last year received a monthly salary of 254.8 thousand UAH. This high salary is less than the monthly pension (lifetime allowance), which, thanks to the court decision, Oksenenko should receive.
The court decided that the pension of an appellate court judge should reach UAH 268.3 thousand monthly. This is not the largest pension in Ukraine, but Oksenenko still became a record holder for another indicator. The pension fund, by decision of Oksenenko’s colleague, judge of the Kyiv District Administrative Court Andrey Balaklitsky (died in October of this year), must pay the pensioner 17 million 27 thousand UAH (the decision came into force on May 21, 2024). Oksenenko will receive this much for the fact that the Pension Fund complied with the law and limited the size of the pension during recalculation. The Kiev District Administrative Court ordered the recalculation to be carried out again, but without restrictions and retroactively.
OBOZ.UA provided a list of court cases in which PFU lost the largest sums to elite pensioners to the Ministry of Social Policy. After examining the materials, we were able to identify the participants in these cases.
Retired Supreme Court Judge Stanislav Pekny has not filled out declarations for a long time. In 2010, he resigned, and on September 12 last year, the decision of the judge of the Cassation Administrative Court of the Supreme Court, Andrei Rybachuk, came into force, according to which the Pension Fund must pay Peknom 10 million 654 thousand UAH. Also by recalculating pensions retroactively.
Another retired Supreme Court judge, Nikolai Tsitovich, sued the Pension Fund for UAH 9.6 million (the decision came into force at the end of 2022). His former colleague Nikolai Selivanov sued on February 27, 2023 for 9.1 million UAH of pension. The top five richest pensioners are closed by retired judge of the Supreme Economic Court Tamara Gogol. She won the claim for UAH 9 million. The court decision came into force on March 7, 2024.
The Ministry of Social Policy provided OBOZ.UA with a list of cases with the largest amounts won by the PFU:
According to the current law, retired judges receive a lifetime salary from the Pension Fund. In fact, this is the same pension, but its size reaches 90% of the salary in the position where the pensioner worked. Moreover, salaries are considered with all bonuses and allowances. Thus, the decision in favor of Oleg Oksenenko states that when calculating the pension, the salary must include 129.5 thousand UAH “allowances for the specifics of service.”
There are tens of thousands of “special” pensioners in Ukraine: how much do they get paid?
In Ukraine, there is a restriction for everyone: the amount of the assigned pension cannot be higher than 10 subsistence minimums for the disabled. Now it is 23.6 thousand UAH. However, tens of thousands of pensioners circumvented this restriction: they went to court and ordered the Pension Fund to recalculate. In some cases, the recalculation was carried out retroactively, as a result the Pension Fund was obliged to pay millions of hryvnia in addition.
In response to a request from OBOZ.UA, the Ministry of Social Protection said: “According to operational data, as of November 1, 2024, the number of pensioners whose pension was assigned in an amount exceeding UAH 23,610.00 is 24.6 thousand people, including more than 50 000 UAH – 4.9 thousand people.” We are talking about judges, prosecutors, military personnel, Chernobyl victims and other “special” pensions. UAH 9.9 billion is spent monthly on their payments (expected expenses for 2024 are UAH 119.3 billion).
The largest pension in Ukraine is 390 thousand 184 UAH. For comparison, a total of 10 million 342 thousand 593 people receive pensions in Ukraine. Every month they spend 60.5 billion UAH (data for October 2024). If we divide the total amount by the number of pensioners, it turns out that the average pension in Ukraine is 5851 UAH. However, in reality there are only 7 million 533 thousand “ordinary” pensioners. These are those who retired according to the general rules. UAH 42.4 billion are spent on them monthly. And the average pension of an “ordinary” pensioner is UAH 5,635.
Pensions are almost always increased through the courts. In response to a request from OBOZ.UA, the Ministry of Social Affairs reported: in total, pension increases were assigned based on more than 672 thousand court decisions. According to these decisions, starting from 2019, 96 billion UAH have already been paid, 76 billion UAH is an additional debt that the Pension Fund of Ukraine must pay.
Every year, the number of current payments that fall on the Pension Fund of Ukraine in connection with court decisions, and the number of debts, are growing rapidly. For example, in 2019, the cost of court decisions for the pension system (in 2024 prices) amounted to 2.8 billion hryvnia. And in 2023, additional expenses of the Pension Fund of Ukraine for the implementation of court decisions reached 37.2 billion hryvnia.
The decision in pension disputes usually consists of two parts:
- obligations to recalculate the amount of an already assigned pension and begin paying a pension in a new amount. Such decisions are immediately accepted by the Pension Fund of Ukraine for execution, and pension amounts are recalculated;
- obligations to pay a person the difference in the amount of the pension that has already been paid by the Pension Fund and the amount assigned by court decision for the previous period (from any date in the past until the moment the court decision was made). Usually the Pension Fund of Ukraine does not have enough funds. As a result, a debt is formed specifically to pay the difference in the amounts assigned by law and by court decision, pensions for previous periods.
The general formula for calculating a pension allows you to receive a pension in an amount even less than 30% of your usual earnings after a well-deserved retirement. For example, with an average salary of 18.8 thousand UAH, you can receive a pension of about 4.7 thousand UAH. This is only 25% of your last earnings. Prosecutors through the courts can receive a pension of up to 90% of their regular earnings. Judges also receive the same (up to 90%). This is despite the fact that a judge’s salary can reach more than 300 thousand UAH per month.
The special conditions for retirement for some pensioners not only create unfair distribution. This is also a significant burden on the PFU budget. The Ministry of Social Policy is preparing pension reform. In conditions when the majority of pensioners receive a pension that is less than the actual subsistence level, maintaining hundreds of thousands of “special” pensioners is a luxury.
The only people entitled to a truly high pension are war veterans. However, instead of real heroes, prosecutors and judges receive hundreds of thousands of hryvnia from the Pension Fund.
