CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 13 février 2025

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s79B8843C { margin-top:60pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } Published on 3 March 2025   FIFTH SECTION Application no. 21106/18 Vitaliy Oleksandrovych MANKOVSKYY against Ukraine lodged on 24 April 2018 communicated on 13 February 2025 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns the authorities’ refusal to grant the applicant an early-retirement pension due to the absence of evidence that his former employer complied with occupational safety regulations. When the applicant, a former mine worker, reached the age of 50 years, he applied for a State old-age retirement pension, asserting eligibility for early retirement in view of more than ten years spent working underground, a recognised hazardous working condition. The Pension Fund, however, found no evidence that the mine where the applicant had worked from 1992 to 1999 had undergone the workplace certification ( «атестація робочого місця за умовами праці» ) necessary for early retirement pensions in such cases. As a result, it excluded that period and rejected his application. The applicant brought administrative proceedings, seeking an order requiring the Pension Fund to grant him the early-retirement pension. On 2 October 2017 the Frunzivskyy District Court of Odesa region and on 23 November 2017 the Odesa Administrative Court of Appeal ruled in the applicant’s favour referring to the testimony of the applicant’s former co ‑ workers as evidence of the mine’s compliance with the workplace certification requirement. The courts additionally noted that the employer’s failure to comply with this requirement should not deprive the applicant of his right to an early retirement in view of the hazardous working conditions he had endured. On 30 January 2018 the Supreme Court overturned these rulings and dismissed the applicant’s claim. While it did not dispute that the applicant had worked underground during the relevant period, the Supreme Court, citing the case-law of the cassation courts, held that without documentary evidence of workplace certification, the applicant’s employment in those conditions could not count toward early-retirement eligibility. Relying in substance on Article   1 of Protocol   No.   1, the applicant complains that the refusal to grant him the early-retirement pension violated his right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions as the responsibility for compliance with the workplace certification requirement had rested entirely with his former employer and had been beyond his control. Furthermore, invoking Article 6 of the Convention, he also complains that the proceedings before the Supreme Court were unfair in view of its unjustified dismissal of the witnesses’ testimony and the resulting inability to otherwise demonstrate his eligibility for the early-retirement pension. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES 1.     Did the applicant have a “legitimate expectation” to obtain an early retirement pension, within the meaning of Article   1 of Protocol No.   1 to the Convention (see Béláné   Nagy v.   Hungary   [GC], no.   53080/13, §§   80 ‑ 86, 13 December 2016)?   2.     If so, has there been an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of possessions, within the meaning of Article   1 of Protocol   No.   1? Has that interference been in the public interest, and in accordance with the conditions provided for by law, and, if so, did it impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant (see Moskal v.   Poland , no. 10373/05, § 64, 15 September 2009; Sukhanov and Ilchenko v. Ukraine , nos. 68385/10 and   71378/10, § 55, 26 June 2014; and, mutatis mutandis , “Bulves” AD v.   Bulgaria , no. 3991/03, § 69, 22 January 2009)?   In particular, did the applicant have a possibility of effectively challenging the decision not to grant him an early retirement pension (see, mutatis mutandis , G.I.E.M. S.r.l. and Others v. Italy [GC], nos. 1828/06 and 2   others, § 302, 28 June 2018)?   The parties are invited to provide the Court with relevant examples of the domestic case-law on the matter, in particular prior to the adoption of the decision of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court of 19 February 2020 in case no. 520/15025/16-а.