vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #555 / Special reports / Reading article...

A 69-year-old woman from Vladivostok facing a $7,500 repayment to the Russian Pensioner Fund which she considers unfair, has recently applied to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg to consider her case and received a positive answer.

Albina Fefelova decided to apply to the Strasbourg Court after the Russian Pensioner Fund informed her that she owed the fund a sum of 200,000 rubles.

Fefelova in the past had received two pension subsidies from the Fund, one as a retirement pension and another as a person who had lost her primary family financial supporter.

Fefelova was not aware of the moment when the law was changed, discontinuing her qualification for the second subsidy. The Russian Pensioners Fund did not inform her of the change in her situation and she continued to receive two pensions from them.

In 2005 the Fund claimed that Fefelova owed it a sum totaling 200,000 rubles. A Vladivostok court ruled that Fefelova had to pay the Fund.

Fefelova’s attorney Olga Ignatiyeva forwarded an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg in the end of 2006 and soon after received a positive answer. “We did not expect to get the answer so soon,” Ignatiyeva said, adding that she hoped for the chance to change some articles in Russia’s Pensioners laws, Ria Novosti cited her as saying.

Specialists from Primorye’s branch of Russia’s Pensioners Fund reported that, “they know about the situation but will not comment it.”