Chapter 1. Observing social rights There is a need for legislative regulation of ensuring the exercise of the right to receive a pension for citizens detained in pre-trial detention facilities, since the effective legislation regulates these issues only for sentenced prisoners. The proposals of the Commissioner are supported by the Ministry of Social Policy that is developing the respective draft regulatory act. Failure to comply with court decisions regarding retirement benefits A large part of citizens’ appeals to the Commissioner in 2019 concerned problems with enforcement of the court decisions on payment of pension, in particular, the failure to take into account the rulings and legal assessment of the courts included in the justification part of such decisions in the award/ recalculation of pension payments to citizens. Example In May 2019, the Commissioner was addressed by citizen V. from Dnipropetrovsk oblast. The court in his case ordered the PFU territorial body to reconsider the documents for granting the pension on preferential terms, taking into account the legal assessment and the ruling of this court regarding the wrongful refusal to grant the pension. However, when considering the enforcement of the court decision, the PFU territorial body did not take into account the court’s arguments and again refused to grant a preferential pension to the applicant. At the request of the Commissioner to the PFU, only in July 2019, the right of citizen V. to his due pension was restored, and the additional money were paid for the period from April 2018 to July 2019 (for 16 months). Other facts of improper enforcement of court decisions passed in favour of citizens have been also established3. The results of a monitoring visit by the Commissioner’s Secretariat in August 2019 to the PFU Main Department in Dnipropetrovsk oblast revealed a number of other issues and deficiencies in implementation of citizens’ rights to pension that require legislative changes. In particular, it concerns the settlement of: • recalculation of pensions due to changes in the legislation in cases for which no individual mass recalculation was made on the date of entry into force of the regulatory act, as well as the timing of updating the pension recipients on the feasibility of choosing other pension calculation options, which is currently only possible when the respective pensioners submit the relevant applications. It will ensure that the pension is increased from an earlier period; www.ombudsman.gov.ua/ua/all-news/pr/ponovleno-pravo-gromadyanina-na-otrimannya-pens%D1%96%D1%97-v-nalezhnomu-rozm%D1%96r%D1%96-v%D1%96dpov%D1%96dno-do-r%D1%96shennya-sudu/. 3 23 CHAPTER 1 Violation of citizens’ rights to retirement benefits while in prison