Draft bill #12149 of October 24, 2024 

Cosponsors: a group of 18 MP from the faction Holos, Servant of the People, and European Solidarity, the For the Future group, and independents with Inna Sovsun as the first signatory 

Status: sent for review to the Law Enforcement Committee of the Verkhovna Rada 

Who is affected: the Pension Fund of Ukraine, employees of the prosecution who received the status of persons with disabilities of groups I or II, and courts 

Summary: 

  • the bill abolishes the right of prosecutors with disabilities of groups I or II to receive a disability pension in the amount of 60% of their monthly salary if they have worked in the prosecution for more than 10 years 
  • if a prosecutor received an extra pension by using forged documents or due to an erroneous decision, this money will be returned either voluntarily or forcibly. In the case of voluntary return, there will be no court proceedings. Otherwise, the Pension Fund will have to collect the overpaid amounts in court or based on its own decision. 

What is right: 

  • the bill ensures that pensions are allocated on equal base to all citizens, regardless of their profession 
  • the obligation to return illegally received funds will prevent attempts to obtain pensions by using forged documents. 

Background information: the criteria for the allocation of disability pensions and their amounts for employees of the prosecution are regulated by a separate law. Prosecutors’ pensions are significantly higher than pensions of other citizens. In other words, former employees of the prosecution can get pensions several times higher than most other retirees. This amounts to monthly payments of around UAH 100,000, while the average pension in Ukraine is about UAH 5,000. 

Significant public outrage has also been caused by the fact that some prosecutors received pensions based on forged medical documents. On October 22, 2024, a presidential decree came into effect, implementing the decision of the National Security and Defense Council to combat corruption and other violations related to designation of disability status for officials. The President ordered to investigate violations, strengthen control over the allocation of such pensions, and eliminate corruption in the medical social expert commissions responsible for granting disability status. 

Additional information: 

  • explainer by Iryna Korzhenkova: Why it is not so simple to eliminate the medical social expert commissions and was the NSDC’s decision necessary to do that? A lawyer’s explanation