"Golden" pensions of prosecutors and judges: who sets such high payouts

"Golden" pensions of prosecutors and judges: who sets such high payouts

Why Prosecutors and Judges Set Excessively High Pensions for Themselves.

The scandal surrounding prosecutors who obtained disability status has already led to the decision to liquidate the medical-social expert commissions (MSEC) and the resignation of the Attorney General. Internal checks revealed that in certain regions, over a quarter of prosecutors officially have disability status. This status grants them certain privileges in employment or transfer to another workplace, as well as the right to receive substantial pension payments.

As Economic Truth has learned, about 20% of prosecutors declared in their statements that they received pension payments. However, a deeper dive into the subject showed that not all of these pensions relate to disability.

According to the Ministry of Social Policy, there are 525 active and former prosecutors in Ukraine who receive disability pensions. Among them, 52 individuals received this status and the corresponding pension between 2022 and 2024. Thus, the majority of the 6,867 retired prosecutors receive pensions for years of service.

By law, a prosecutor’s pension (both for years of service and in case of disability) should be 60% of their salary but cannot exceed ten minimum subsistence levels for persons who have lost capacity to work, which is 23,610 UAH. In practice, however, prosecutors’ pensions often reach tens or even hundreds of thousands of hryvnias per month. A nice "bonus" to the salary, which is also non-taxable.

How did prosecutors manage to bypass the law and receive astronomical pensions, and who else abuses the generosity of the state?

Special Pensions

Most Ukrainians must reach retirement age – 60 years, and have 35 years of work experience, i.e., the period during which the employer paid contributions to the Pension Fund for the future retiree. If these requirements are met, a person gains the right to a pension, which amounts to 35-40% of their average salary.

These conditions apply to most but not all Ukrainians. Over the years of independence, lawmakers have created categories of individuals whose pensions are regulated not by the general law on mandatory state pension insurance but by separate, special legislative acts. Such special pensioners can receive payments from the state much earlier than ordinary citizens, and the payments for them are much higher than the average in the country.

For example, the conditions for prosecutors’ retirement are prescribed in the law "On the Prosecutor’s Office". According to it, prosecutors gain the right to retirement payments with 25 years of work experience, of which 15 years are in prosecution positions. The law stipulates that the amount of the prosecutor’s pension should be 60% of their salary.

Thus, the law allows prosecutors to receive a "bonus" of 60%, from which taxes do not have to be paid. There is no need to fake a disability status for this.

However, this generosity has its limits: lawmakers once amended the prosecutorial law, limiting the maximum possible pension amount for prosecutors to ten minimum subsistence levels for persons who have lost capacity to work. In 2024, this is 23,610 UAH per month.

This limitation applies not only to prosecutors but to all citizens. However, unlike most Ukrainians, prosecutors have learned to effectively circumvent it. A superficial review of their declarations showed that some receive pensions many times higher than the legal limit.

For example, the head of the Specialized Prosecution in the Oversight of Criminal Proceedings on War Crimes, Hryhoriy Riabenko, indicated in his 2023 declaration pension payments in excess of 1 million UAH (an average of 83.5 thousand UAH per month).

The head of the Kharkiv Prosecutor’s Office department, Oleksandr Shevchenko, declared 1.21 million UAH in pension payments (101 thousand UAH), while the Deputy Prosecutor of the Rivne Region, Valeriy Patrykei, almost 1.4 million UAH in pension (116.35 thousand UAH). How do prosecutors manage to receive such payments?

How to Bypass the Law

Judges help prosecutors bypass the pension "ceiling". Judges not only appoint pensions higher than ten minimum subsistence levels but also higher than the law-stipulated 60% of the salary.

"A significant number of prosecutors and retirees from security agencies appeal in court for even more favorable pension calculation conditions. For instance, calculating it at 90% of the monetary allowance or salary of a current employee of the respective body," stated the Ministry of Social Policy.

Moreover, prosecutors demand through court to be appointed a pension even without the required 25 years of work experience, of which at least 15 are in prosecutor positions. To understand how they manage to win unlimited pensions from the state, one should review several court decisions on pension appointments.

First, a prosecutor appeals to the Pension Fund to have a pension appointed under a special law. Often, the PF responds to such appeals with a refusal, as the prosecutor does not have the necessary years of service.

Upon receiving a refusal, the prosecutor turns to the court and demands a recalculation of their work experience, as well as a pension calculation exceeding 60% of their salary. In their arguments, the plaintiff refers not to the current law "On the Prosecutor’s Office" of 2015, but to the law of 1991, which lost its validity. Notably, not the latest edition but the one effective since 2001.

That edition of the old law "On the Prosecutor’s Office" defined entirely different retirement rules for prosecutors. According to it, prosecutors gained this right with 20 years of work experience, of which only ten were in prosecutor positions.

The pension benefit for a prosecutor was set at 80% of their salary. For each year of service beyond ten years in that position, the pension amount increased by 2% of the salary, but no more than 90% of the salary. Thus, having served in prosecution bodies for 15 or more years, a person could claim a pension amounting to 90% of their salary under the old law.

Importantly, this edition of the non-existent law did not set any restrictions on the maximum allowable pension amount.

The plaintiffs justify their demands by saying that at the start of their career (including studying at law faculties in higher educational institutions), different legislation was in effect, thereby giving them "legitimate expectations" of pensions amounting to 80-90% of salary. Meanwhile, the Constitution prohibits limiting citizens’ rights, and the deterioration of retirement conditions for prosecutors constitutes such a limitation.

As a rule, courts agree with these arguments. Sometimes they simply overturn the PF’s decision to appoint a pension and require the fund to recalculate it. However, more often than not, judges themselves describe what the prosecutor’s pension amount should be. This was the case in four instances.

Sometimes, prosecutors don’t stop at receiving an additional 90% above their salary and appeal to the court every time their salary increases, so that it obligates the PF to correspondingly increase their pension payout.

Not Only Prosecutors

In Ukraine, there are 6,867 retired prosecutors. A significant portion receives a pension and continues to work in their positions. Economic Truth found that every fifth prosecutor indicated in their 2023 declaration that they received a pension from the state. However, this situation is typical not only for this category of individuals.

Besides prosecutors, judges receive special pensions from the state. These judges help prosecutors obtain vastly large payments, former government officials, law enforcers, and military personnel.

Special retirement conditions are also provided for individuals affected by the Chernobyl disaster. In recent years, the state has faced a flurry of lawsuits where individuals demand additional pension payments amounting to two to three minimum wages. Courts usually satisfy such claims, citing legislation that has lost its validity.

Additionally, the state guarantees retirement benefits to those who worked at enterprises with harmful working conditions – the so-called List 1 and List 2. According to the Ministry of Social Policy, every fifth retiree has the right to some kind of preferential pension. In Ukraine, this figure significantly exceeds the corresponding indicators in developed countries.

The size of special pensions is significantly larger than regular ones. The Ministry of Social Policy did not provide relevant data for October 2024. However, it is known that at the beginning of 2023, the average prosecutor’s pension was 4.5 times larger than the average pension in Ukraine, and the judges’ monetary allowance was 21 times larger.

Such large payments place pressure on the state budget, from which special pensions are paid. Moreover, the volumes of these expenditures increase year by year. For the first nine months of 2024, the state spent almost 88 billion UAH on special pensions, which is 20% more than the same period in 2023 (73.3 billion UAH). By the end of 2024, special pensions will cost the budget almost 120 billion UAH.

However, not only do state expenditures on special pensions increase, but so do the debts on court decisions regarding the recalculation of pension payments. Often pensioners ask the court not only to appoint them a larger pension but also to recover from the state the amounts they under-received in previous periods. If at the beginning of 2024 the debt on such court decisions was 66 billion UAH, by October it rose to 76 billion UAH.

When there is political will, the state can solve even those problems that have been ignored for decades. The example of fake disabilities issued by the MSEC testifies to this. Will there be political will to review pension privileges for law enforcers, security personnel, and judges?