Přehled
Rozhodnutí
FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 30093/19
Galyna Mykolayivna NOVYKOVA
against Ukraine
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 11 December 2025 as a Committee composed of:
Andreas Zünd, President,
Mykola Gnatovskyy,
Vahe Grigoryan, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 30093/19) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 1 June 2019 by a Ukrainian national, Ms Galyna Mykolayivna Novykova (“the applicant”), who was born in 1954, lived in Donetsk and was represented by Mr V. Makarov, a lawyer practising in Kyiv;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko, from the Ministry of Justice;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The present case concerns the delayed enforcement of a final and binding court decision ordering the resumption of payment of the applicant’s pension, allegedly in breach of Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention, and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.
2. Following the start of the hostilities in the eastern regions of Ukraine in 2014, the applicant, a pensioner, moved to the government‑controlled territories where she was registered as an internally displaced person (“IDP”). As of April 2016, her IDP status had not been confirmed under a special procedure which required, inter alia, the regular verification of her place of residence. Consequently, the applicant’s pension payments were suspended.
3. In November 2018 the applicant instituted proceedings in the Zaporizhzhia Circuit Administrative Court, which ordered the Zaporizhzhia Central Office of the Pension Fund to resume the payment of her pension and to pay her the pension debt owed to her for the period of suspension. That judgment was delivered on 28 December 2018 and became enforceable on 29 January 2019.
4. The relevant enforcement proceedings were opened on 26 April 2019. The judgment in question was enforced in full in March 2020 and the proceedings were closed on 24 March 2020. The applicant acknowledged that fact.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
5. The applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention, and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention about the non‑enforcement of the final and binding court judgment of 28 December 2018.
6. The Government submitted that the applicant had lost her victim status after the court judgment in her favour had been enforced in full. They therefore asked the Court to dismiss her complaints as incompatible ratione personae with the provisions of the Convention and the Protocols thereto.
7. The Court does not consider it necessary to examine the victim status objection raised by the Government because the applicant’s complaints are in any event inadmissible for the reasons set out below.
8. The Court notes that the judgment at issue became enforceable on 29 January 2019 and was enforced in full on 24 March 2020, when it was confirmed by the State Bailiffs Service. The period of non‑enforcement under consideration therefore amounted to almost one year and two months. The Court reiterates in this connection that appropriations for the payment of State debts may cause some delay in the enforcement of judgments from the Government’s budget (see Voytenko v. Ukraine, no. 18966/02, § 42, 29 June 2004).
9. The Court further reiterates that in certain previous cases against Ukraine it has held that periods of eight months (see Kornilov and Others v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 36575/02, 7 October 2003), one year and two months (see Shmalko v. Ukraine, no. 60750/00, §§ 44-47, 20 July 2004), one year and six months (see Pavlyulynets v. Ukraine, no. 70767/01, § 37, 6 September 2005) and one year and one month (see Zhovtan v Ukraine (dec.), no. 17044/02, 22 November 2005) were not so excessive as to raise an arguable non‑enforcement issue. The Court finds no reason to come to a different conclusion in the present case.
10. It follows that the application is manifestly ill‑founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention and must be rejected pursuant to Article 35 § 4.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 22 January 2026.
Martina Keller Andreas Zünd
Deputy Registrar President