Published on 6 March 2023

FIFTH SECTION

Application no. 8753/16 Tamara Vasylivna BABKINIS against Ukraine lodged on 3 February 2016 communicated on 17 February 2023

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the applicant’s complaints, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, that she was deprived unlawfully of her back pay and that the domestic courts, in rejecting her claim for back pay and related compensation claims, did not provide sufficient reasons for their decisions.

The applicant used to be employed by the environmental inspectorate of the Luhansk region, in the city of Luhansk. After the intensification of hostilities in the region in July 2014, fearing for her safety and that of her two foster children, she left the region. There was no formal decision on her status at work from July to November 2014. In November 2014 the inspectorate was formally moved to and restarted its work in the city of Siverodonetsk of the Luhansk region since Luhansk, its previous seat, was no longer under the control of Ukraine (see Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia [GC] (dec.), nos. 8019/16, 43800/14 and 28525/20, § 696, 25 January 2023, and Khlebik v. Ukraine , no. 2945/16, §§ 8-16, 25 July 2017).

The applicant, unwilling to return to Siverodonetsk to take up her post, resigned. She lodged a claim for unpaid salary for the period from July to November 2014. On 22 December 2015 the High Administrative Court upheld the lower courts’ decision dismissing the applicant’s claims.

The courts referred, in particular, to section 4 of the resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of 7 November 2014 no. 595 which provided that salaries would be paid to the employees of public institutions moved from the lost territories in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions to the territory under Government control on the condition that the institutions kept functioning and the employees were performing their duties. They provided no explicit response to the applicant’s argument that her situation was rather covered by section 3 of the resolution, which governed the period prior to such transfer of institutions and which required that salaries for such pre-transfer period be paid in full, without the condition of institutions actually functioning or employees performing their duties during that period.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicant have a fair hearing in the determination of her civil rights in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did the courts provide sufficient reasons for their decisions (see, for example, Bochan v. Ukraine (no. 2) [GC], no. 22251/08, § 61, ECHR 2015, and Ramos Nunes de Carvalho e Sá v. Portugal [GC], nos. 55391/13 and 2 others, § 185, 6 November 2018, with further references)?

2. Was there an interference with the applicant’s rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? Did it comply with the requirements of that provision (see, for example, Svit Rozvag, TOV and Others v. Ukraine , nos. 13290/11 and 2 others, §§ 158-64, 27 June 2019, and Anželika Šimaitienė v. Lithuania , no. 36093/13, §§ 110-16, 21 April 2020)?