A man is seeking 7 million hryvnias in compensation due to delays in receiving his pension. What was the court's decision?

A man was forced to spend nearly three years of his life proving to the government that he is a living person. Additionally, his pension payments have been suspended. He is seeking compensation of 7 million hryvnias due to the unlawful actions of police officers. This is stated in the decision of the Dzerzhynskyi District Court of Kharkiv, published on December 25, 2024.

Since April 26, 2017, the man has been a retirement pensioner, registered with the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region, receiving a pension which is his only source of income. He received his pension until mid-2020, when the payments were halted. Upon his inquiry at the service center in the city of Izium, the specialist from the pension authority informed him that according to the automatic data exchange between the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine and the Pension Fund of Ukraine, there is a record in the state register of civil status acts indicating his death, which was the basis for stopping his pension payments, as if he were a deceased person. However, after his identification, the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Kharkiv resumed pension payments on July 21, 2020. The citizen then submitted an application to the Izium District Department of the Main Directorate of the State Migration Service of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region, along with documents for exchanging his old passport in book form for a new ID card. However, following the verification conducted by the migration service based on the submitted documents, the issuance of a new ID card was denied because the state register contains a record of his death dated February 21, 2020, No. 346. For the same reason (record of death No. 346), his old passport issued on March 13, 1997, was confiscated, and a note was made indicating "Invalid documents." Since December 2020, pension payments were again halted and remained unpaid until February 2024.

The man repeatedly contacted the police to obtain information regarding the criminal proceedings about the grounds for his identification in the decision for appointing a forensic examination of the deceased, while simultaneously demanding the resumption of the investigation and the urgent investigative actions for his identification as a living person, correcting the identification of the unidentified deceased, and restoring his violated rights by sending the relevant investigative conclusions about him as a living person to the Slavyansk Department of the State Register Office in the Kramatorsk region to annul the record of his death No. 346 from February 21, 2020, while providing documents that verify his identity and the fact that he is alive.

"The plaintiff has become a hostage of the situation (declared deceased), unable to receive his pension through no fault of his own, and therefore must seek effective protection of his violated rights and interests in court due to the negligence or error of police employees. After the annulment of the record of death No. 346 from February 21, 2020, in the State Register of Civil Status Acts as per the aforementioned court decision, in January 2024, he received a Ukrainian citizen's passport (ID card) from the territorial body of the State Migration Service of Ukraine dated January 10, 2024. Following the receipt of the Ukrainian citizen's passport and the identification procedure at the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Kharkiv, proper pension payments were restored from January 2024," the case materials state.

What did the court decide?

The court partially satisfied the man's claims. The state budget of Ukraine will pay him 100,000 hryvnias in moral damages.

"The court considers it proven in this case that the actions of the senior investigator of the Slavyansk Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine in the Donetsk region, O.M. Sklyarova, were unlawful, and these actions had a negative impact on the plaintiff, causing him suffering and humiliation, thus inflicting moral damage on him. There is a causal link between the actions of the defendant's official and the harm caused to the plaintiff, considering that the claims for compensation for moral damage are justified and should be satisfied," the court emphasized.