Calendar Service and Preferential Calculation for a Pension for Years of Service
Pension disputes continue to be considered by Ukrainian courts, with some reaching the country’s highest judicial authority — the Supreme Court. Such cases often concern legal issues on which the Supreme Court has not previously expressed a definitive position or situations where it considers it necessary to depart from its earlier case law.
One such dispute concerned the calculation of calendar service and, in particular, the meaning of the term “calendar service” when determining entitlement to a pension for years of service for military personnel and certain other categories of persons. An important legal position was expressed in the Supreme Court judgment of 14 April 2021 in Case No. 480/4241/18. In this judgment, the Supreme Court departed from some of its previous legal conclusions.
The claimant brought proceedings seeking to oblige the Pension Fund of Ukraine to transfer her to a pension for years of service on the basis of her service in the State Enforcement Service.
Having examined the parties’ arguments and the case materials, the Supreme Court concluded that “calendar service” under Law of Ukraine No. 2262-XII “On Pension Provision for Persons Discharged from Military Service and Certain Other Persons” means service calculated according to the actual number of calendar days within the relevant period. For these purposes, a calendar year consists of 365 calendar days and a calendar month is calculated as 30 calendar days.
At the same time, the preferential conditions for granting pensions provided for by Law No. 2262-XII and Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine No. 393 allow certain periods of service to be credited on preferential, or multiplied, terms.
The Supreme Court emphasised that preferentially calculated service does not constitute a separate type of service and does not replace the actual calendar duration of service. Instead, it is a special method of crediting qualifying periods already completed by a person. The actual duration of the person’s service remains unchanged, but certain periods are counted at a preferential multiplier for pension purposes.
As a result, preferential calculation may allow a person to accumulate the required length of service for entitlement to a pension for years of service more quickly than would be possible if only the actual calendar duration of those periods were taken into account.
Therefore, when determining entitlement to a pension for years of service under the legislation governing pensions for military personnel and certain other categories of persons, qualifying periods of calendar service may be credited on preferential terms in accordance with the rules established by Resolution No. 393.
The legal position expressed by the Supreme Court in Case No. 480/4241/18 is particularly important in disputes where the competent authority or the Pension Fund refuses to take preferentially calculated periods into account when determining whether a person has accumulated sufficient service for a pension for years of service.
