FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF SIVKA v. UKRAINE(Application no. 46247/15)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG13 November 2025 This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Sivka v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: María Elósegui, President, Diana Sârcu, Sébastien Biancheri, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the application (no. 46247/15) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 8 September 2015 by a Ukrainian national, Ms Olena Vasylivna Sivka (“the applicant”), who was born in 1957 and lives in Khmelnytskyi;the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko, of the Ministry of Justice;the parties’ observations; Having deliberated in private on 16 October 2025,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE1. The application concerns a decision by the State Pension Fund (“the Fund”) to recover pension amounts paid to the applicant under an early‑retirement scheme, to which she was allegedly not entitled.2. From 2005 the applicant was registered as an entrepreneur (фізична особа – підприємець) authorised to sell goods at street markets. On 25 June 2008 a commercial court ordered the termination of the applicant’s entrepreneurial activity, owing to her failure to comply with mandatory fiscal reporting obligations. Information about both the applicant’s registration as an entrepreneur and the 2008 judicial order was duly recorded in the relevant State register.3. In July 2012, after reaching the age of 55, the applicant applied to the State for an old age pension under an early-retirement scheme[1]. This scheme was open to women who had reached the age of 55, completed at least thirty years of service and were unemployed. In her pension application, in response to the question “Currently: working/ not working” the applicant indicated “not working”. On an unspecified date her application was approved.4. The applicant received an early-retirement monthly pension until July 2013, when, upon reaching the statutory retirement age, that pension was automatically converted into a standard old age pension.5. In April 2014, on reviewing the applicant’s dossier, the Fund discovered the applicant’s registration as an entrepreneur, which in its view rendered the applicant ineligible for an early-retirement pension. In this connection, on 13 May 2014 the Fund ordered the recovery of 10,511.35 Ukrainian hryvnias (UAH; approximately 655 euros (EUR) at the relevant time), the total amount of all the payments made under the early‑retirement scheme to the applicant, by deducting 20% of her monthly old age pension until the full amount was repaid. The deductions began in July 2014.6. In November 2014 the applicant instituted administrative proceedings against the Fund. Relying on the 2008 judicial order, the applicant argued that her entrepreneurial activity had been terminated long ago, that from July 2006 she had received no income from it, she was unemployed, and that the State authorities ought to have been aware of these facts. She also contended that the pension application form had only asked if she was working or not, and that she was not required to inform the Fund of her registration as an entrepreneur. In her view, she was therefore entitled to an early-retirement pension.7. Although the first-instance court found in the applicant’s favour, stating that there were no signs of abuse on the part of the applicant, on 18 February 2015 the Vinnytsia Administrative Court of Appeal, upheld by the Higher Administrative Court on 11 March 2015, overturned the first-instance ruling and rejected the applicant’s claim. Citing domestic provisions authorising the Fund to recover pension payments in the event that they had been made on the basis of false information, the appeal court found that, when applying for the early-retirement pension, the applicant had informed the Fund that she was not registered as an entrepreneur, which contradicted the official records. The court further held that the applicant still had to complete the prescribed administrative steps before her entrepreneurial status could be removed from the State register.8. As of 1 July 2018, the deductions from the applicant’s pension were terminated in view of the full recovery of the outstanding amount.THE COURT’S ASSESSMENTALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 of protocol NO. 1 to THe CONVENTION9. The applicant complained under Article 6 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that the decision to deduct the impugned amounts from her pension had violated her right to the peaceful enjoyment of her possessions and that the domestic courts had failed to assess her case properly.10. The Court, being the master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of the case (see Radomilja and Others v. Croatia [GC], nos. 37685/10 and 22768/12, §§ 114 and 126, 20 March 2018), considers that the applicant’s complaints fall to be examined under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 only.The parties’ submissions11. The Government argued that the applicant’s complaints were incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention, as she had not had a “legitimate expectation” to receive the funds obtained under the early-retirement pension scheme. They also submitted that by failing to inform the Fund that she had been a registered entrepreneur, the applicant had contributed to the situation in question and her complaints were therefore manifestly ill-founded.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 1
Outcome: violation