Communicated on 16 April 2020 Published on 8 June 2020

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 47309/12 Mykhaylo Oleksandrovych VYSHNEVSKYY against Ukraine lodged on 17 July 2012

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Mr Mykhaylo Oleksandrovych Vyshnevskyy , is a Ukrainian national, who was born in 1956 and lives in Varash .

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

In June 2011 the applicant instituted administrative proceedings against the pension authorities to claim increase of his pension based on the rise in the average wages in the country since his retirement, as well as an additional health-damage pension.

On 3 August 2011 the Kuznetsovskyy City Court (“the Kuznetsovskyy Court”), having considered the applicant ’ s claim by way of an abridged administrative procedure, allowed that claim in full.

On 21 September 2011 the Kuznetsovskyy Court sent a letter informing the Zhytomyr Administrative Court of Appeal (“the Court of Appeal”) and the parties about the transfer of the case to the appellate court for examination of an appeal lodged by the respondent authority on an unspecified date. According to the applicant, the Court of Appeal did not send him a copy of the appeal and did not provide him with the possibility to comment on it.

On 17 February 2012 the Zhytomyr Administrative Court of Appeal, having examined the case in written proceedings, quashed the decision of the first-instance court insofar as it pertained to the old-age pension recalculation and upheld it in the part concerning the additional health-damage pension. Its ruling was final.

The relevant domestic legal provisions are summarised, in particular, in Ustimenko v. Ukraine (no. 32053/13, §§ 28, 32 and 33, 29 October 2015).

COMPLAINT

The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the Court of Appeal examined the case without having sent him a copy of the Pension Fund ’ s appeal and having thus deprived him of the possibility to comment on it.

QUESTION TO THE PARTIES

Was the principle of equality of arms respected during the proceedings in the applicant ’ s case before the administrative court of appeal, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, on account of the alleged failure of the domestic authorities to serve on the applicant a copy of the appeal in his case and to provide him with the possibility to comment on it (see, for example, Viktor Nazarenko v. Ukraine (no. 18656/13, §§ 37-49, 3 October 2017)?