Fear Foundation

The Constitutional Court took the side of the disabled in their war with the Social Insurance Fund, which takes away previously paid money

In July 2017, Novaya Gazeta reported on Vladimir Volosnikov, a miner from the Kemerovo region, who became the first disabled person in the country to be paid back by the Social Insurance Fund. The Constitutional Court adopted a decision that should stop the flow of such claims.

The miner Volosnikov worked at the Tashtagol mine for 27 years and retired with a vibration disease of the second degree, becoming one of several thousand disabled workers who doubted that the social insurance payment of 25 thousand rubles a month was fair.

Volosnikov filed a lawsuit against social insurance and by decision of the Tashtagol court of the Kemerovo region, payments were increased to 49 thousand rubles a month. The court recognized that for thirteen years the disabled person had not been paid 3.3 million rubles. But the Social Insurance Fund continued the war with the disabled, and in March 2015 the Supreme Court refused to pay Volosnikov. So the miner's case became a precedent, and the Tashtagol court ordered the already paid 3.3 million rubles to be returned back.

As soon as this court decision came to light, the Social Insurance Fund filed dozens of similar lawsuits throughout Russia. The amounts to be returned by disabled people range from 200,000 to 3 million rubles.

Lawyers whom Novaya Gazeta told about this did not believe their ears. According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, compensation for harm caused to life or health is not refundable. But the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation ignored this provision, and in the ruling indicated that the victims received not payments for compensation for damage to life and health, but payments for insurance relations, which means that it is possible to demand money from the disabled. And after that, a new stage began - the revision by district courts of previously issued decisions throughout Russia.

It is not only about the decisions of the last two years. For example, in June 2017, the Voronezh Regional Court recognized as lawful the revision due to “new” circumstances of the court decision on the recovery of payments from social insurance in favor of a victim at work, issued in 2009 (!).

In August, the lawyers of the legal association "Civil Compensations" met with the Commissioner for Human Rights Tatyana Moskalkova, who initiated a meeting with representatives of the Social Insurance Fund of the Russian Federation, at which representatives of the department stated that more than 4,000 cases were planned for reverse collection. The result of the meeting was a verbal promise from the Foundation to suspend filing claims.

Seven disabled laborers from the Kemerovo region filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, in which they asked to check paragraph 5 of part 4 of article 392 of the Civil Procedure Code for compliance with the Constitution. We are talking about the possibility for the courts to review their decisions due to newly discovered circumstances, if the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in a similar situation took a different position.

The applicants are residents of Prokopyevsk, Kemerovo Region, mostly miners. Since April 2016, social insurance began to apply to the court of the city of Prokopyevsk for a review of their cases. Earlier decisions were canceled, payments began to be demanded back.

- You substantiated the motives for the appeal, and what do you see as the unconstitutionality of the disputed paragraph of the Civil Code? Mikhail Krotov, Plenipotentiary Representative of the President to the Constitutional Court, asked at the meeting. - Do I understand correctly that you believe that the Constitution of the Russian Federation does not protect the rights of citizens? Krotov asks with irony.

“If we are here, it means that we are protecting,” the applicants' lawyers retorted.

As a result, on October 17, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ruled that the norm (Article 392 of the Code of Civil Procedure of the Russian Federation) is constitutional, but its arbitrary interpretation, as was the case in the applicants' cases, is unacceptable. The Constitutional Court suggested that the federal legislator fix the inadmissibility of giving retroactive effect to the interpretation of legal norms if this violates the rights of socially unprotected citizens in disputes with the authorities.

“In fact, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation did more than could be expected,” lawyer Irina Fast, who represented the applicants, comments on the decision.

If the Constitutional Court recognized the practice of revisions as corresponding to the country's fundamental law, the Social Insurance Fund would file more than four thousand lawsuits against disabled people.

Alisa Kustikova,
"New",
Serafim Romanov -
for "New"