DISINFO: European Court says not to pay Donbas seniors
SUMMARY
The European Court wrote off millions of Kyiv debts to the self-proclaimed Donbas people’s republics and recognised Ukraine’s right not to pay pensions and social benefits to people in the occupied territories.
RESPONSE
What the European Court for Human Rights actually did was to dismiss the lawsuit of pensioners from Donetsk, who were challenging a suspension of pension payments and other social benefits before a court in the city where they lived. The European Court ruled against the pensioners, noting out that they first had to go through the court system in Ukraine and only after exhausting those possibilities, sue in the European Court, as is normal practise. The Court did not find that the pensioners’ access to courts had been violated, pointing out that they had failed to go through the judicial system in Ukrainian controlled territory to pursue their case. The court made no ruling about alleged millions Kyiv owed to the self-proclaimed republics and there is no mention of a decision not to pay pensions. The court ruled that the plaintiffs were not discriminated against based on their place of residence, as they had alleged, and pointed out that they were not in the same situation as other residents of Ukraine as the Ukrainian Government did not exercise effective control of their city. Further debunking by Stopfake www.stopfake.org/en/fake-europe-denies-donbas-pensions/, .