Legal issue: whether the contested rules are constitutional if they – in the meaning given to them by the continuous law-application practice – make the rendering of measures of social protection to citizens, who work in the territory of the zone of residence with privileged social and economic status, dependent upon their living (or working) there as of 2 December 1995?

Ratio decidendi: the Court noted that under the legislation currently in force those persons who lived in the territory of the aforementioned zone before 1 January 1991 (that is, during the years immediately after the Chernobyl catastrophe) and returned thereto after 2 December 1995 are in a worse position compared with those who arrived there after 1 January 1991 and lived there as of 2 December 1995. The Court deemed such distinction to be unjustified and incommensurate to constitutionally significant goals and the contested rules to be nonconformant to the Constitution. The federal legislator should make necessary changes in the current legal regulation in order to guarantee to the citizens who permanently resided (or worked) in the territory of the aforementioned zone before 1 January 1991, then left in during the period preceding 2 December 1995 and subsequently (after that date) returned there for permanent residence the right to monthly compensation in monies and annual additional paid leave.