How to Challenge a Pension Refusal in Ukraine
Every day, our company is contacted by clients who are unable to retire because the Pension Fund of Ukraine has refused to grant them a pension. Unfortunately, the number of such refusals continues to grow, as reflected in the statistics of administrative courts. Hundreds of thousands of pension-related disputes are considered by Ukrainian courts, and a significant number of these cases concern challenges to decisions refusing to grant pensions.
How much do pension lawyer services cost? (click here)
Why Should You Contact a Lawyer After Receiving a Pension Refusal?
1. An experienced pension lawyer can analyse the reasons for the refusal. Not every decision refusing to grant a pension can be successfully challenged in court and result in the desired outcome. Although the Pension Fund has significantly improved the form and content of its pension refusal decisions in recent years, such decisions still frequently contain deficiencies that need to be identified and addressed promptly.
These deficiencies can generally be divided into two categories:
- Substantive deficiencies. Even experienced pension lawyers may sometimes find that the reasons stated in a refusal are unclear or insufficiently explained. After receiving such a decision for analysis, we may submit a request to the Pension Fund asking it to provide additional documents and clarification regarding the reasons for the refusal.
- Issues concerning the Pension Fund authority that issued the refusal. Currently, pension applications in Ukraine are considered according to the principle of extraterritoriality. This means that even if you submit your documents to a Pension Fund office in Kyiv, they may be reviewed and decided upon, for example, by a Pension Fund authority in Sumy. This can be important because it may affect the pensioner’s choice of the administrative court in which to file a claim. Following the liquidation of the District Administrative Court of Kyiv, its cases were transferred to the Kyiv District Administrative Court, which may affect the time required for a case to be considered. We analyse these procedural circumstances when developing a strategy aimed at achieving the most efficient result for our clients.
2. After analysing the refusal, we assess the prospects of obtaining a favourable court judgment and securing the pension through court proceedings based on our experience and current judicial practice.
We offer our clients an official legal services agreement setting out all the terms of our cooperation. Naturally, clients are usually interested in how much a pension lawyer costs, which is why we discuss all financial terms openly and transparently before commencing our work.
Comprehensive “turnkey” legal representation. We provide a complete legal service and handle pension cases from beginning to end: from obtaining and analysing the decision refusing to grant a pension to conducting court proceedings and ensuring the actual enforcement of the final judgment. We do not limit our services to preparing individual procedural documents, nor do we require clients to collect documents that we can obtain independently. Our goal is to provide clients with comprehensive and convenient legal support.
3. Representation in Court
At this stage, our lawyer independently prepares all necessary documents, drafts and files the statement of claim with the court, and prepares responses, motions and additional written submissions as required. After the court delivers its judgment, we monitor any appellate proceedings, as the Pension Fund frequently appeals judgments issued in favour of pensioners.
If an appeal is filed, we prepare a response to the appeal and any necessary additional submissions. We aim to minimise the client’s personal involvement in procedural matters while keeping the client informed about all important stages and decisions in the case.
4. Enforcement of the Court Judgment
In all our cases challenging Pension Fund decisions refusing to grant a pension, we also provide legal support during the actual enforcement of the court judgment. Where necessary, we obtain writs of execution and initiate enforcement proceedings.
In certain cases, we initiate a procedure of judicial supervision over the enforcement of the judgment, under which the court may require the Pension Fund to provide evidence confirming that the judgment has been properly executed. This can encourage the pension authority to comply with the court decision and grant the pension.
Our comprehensive approach to pension cases provides clients with legal support throughout the entire process. We value the quality of our services and use all available legal mechanisms in each case to pursue the desired result – the actual granting of the pension.
