The Supreme Court Sets Conditions for Applying the Principle of Proportionality in Recovering Legal Assistance Costs.
An individual filed a lawsuit against the Main Department of the Pension Fund of Ukraine in Kyiv, requesting that the actions limiting the maximum amount of pension increase following its recalculation be recognised as unlawful, and to oblige not to limit the amount of the increased pension.
The decision of the district administrative court, upheld by the appellate administrative court, partially satisfied the claim by obliging the defendant to pay the pension to the plaintiff taking into account the indexation, without limiting its maximum amount, considering previously paid sums, and recovered court fees amounting to UAH 900.00 in favour of the plaintiff at the expense of budget allocations.
The plaintiff submitted an application to the court of first instance for an additional decision to recover legal assistance costs from the defendant, amounting to UAH 6,000.00 in his favour.
By an additional decision of the court of first instance, upheld by the appellate court, legal assistance costs totalling UAH 3,000 were recovered in favour of the plaintiff.
The Supreme Court partially satisfied the cassation appeal, cancelled the additional court decision, and distributed court costs, recovering legal assistance costs of UAH 6,000 at the expense of budget allocations for professional legal assistance in administrative proceedings.
The principle of proportionality of the amount of expenses for professional legal assistance should be applied in accordance with the requirements of Part Six of Article 134 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine upon the request of the other party. This means that the defendant, as a person disputing the amount of legal assistance costs claimed by the plaintiff, is obliged to provide justification and submit relevant evidence confirming the disproportionality of the claimed court costs to the stated claims by filing a corresponding motion to reduce the legal assistance costs. The court, guided by the principles of proportionality, reasonableness, and factuality, decides on the distribution of court costs based on the criteria established in Article 139 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of Ukraine.
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