This was the conclusion of the Supreme Administrative Court of Cassation in its judgment of 7 March 2020 in Case No. 287/21/15-a.

According to the case file, the plaintiff since 2009 was registered at the Pension Fund (the defendant) and received a pension for years of service in accordance with Art. 50-1 of the Law "On the Prosecutor's Office".

Since February 2015, the claimant has started to accrue less pension than before, which became the basis for applying to the pension authority.

In reviewing the decisions of the courts of the previous instance, the Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeal that the pension authority's actions to pay the claimant a pension of 85% in accordance with the provisions of the Law "On Amendments to Some Legislative Acts of Ukraine on Retirement Security" are legitimate.

What are the arguments of the Supreme Court?

1. According to the provisions of Art. 47 of the Law "On compulsory state pension insurance", during the period of work in other positions / jobs, a pension assigned to a person in accordance with this article (except for disabled persons of groups I and II, war invalids of group III and participants of hostilities, persons covered by the action) of Article 10, paragraph 1 of the Law of Ukraine "On the status of war veterans, guarantees of their social protection"), the amount of which exceeds 150% of the subsistence minimum, set for disabled persons, is paid in the amount of 85% of the assigned amount, but not less than 150% of the subsistence minimum m set for those unable to work.

Upon dismissal, the payment of the pension in accordance with this Law shall be renewed.

An analysis of this norm leads to the conclusion that the payment of a pension of 85% of the assigned is made only in the case of employment of a pensioner. It is therefore of paramount importance to establish whether the claimant is working in any job / position that would give grounds for determining his / her status as a retired employee.

2. The court found that the plaintiff is a pensioner and has been registered with the PF since 2009. However, in 2010, the plaintiff was registered with the supervisory authorities as an individual engaged in an independent professional activity (lawyer), in connection with which, since July 2015, the payment of the plaintiff's pension amounted to 85% of its total size.

3. The order of May 31, 2018 (Case No. 750/9213/16-c) stated the Supreme Court's conclusion that: "... advocacy is an independent professional activity under the Law on Advocacy and Advocacy, and therefore the defendant is not may be considered to be an unemployed person from the time he / she receives the certificate on the right to practice law, irrespective of the time of his / her registration by the bodies of the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine…. ".

The analysis of the above gives grounds to conclude that a lawyer who has a valid certificate for the right to practice as a lawyer is given the opportunity to secure a job by himself, that is, the lawyer is a self-employed person, belongs to the employed population and cannot be recognized as unemployed. Therefore, the Pension Fund rightly pays the pension to the person of 85% of the total amount.