Most demanding Chernobyl Clean-up Workers could face criminal prosecution

According to the Head of the Party of the Regions parliamentary faction, Oleksandr Yefremov, people who took part in the clean-up work after the Chernobyl Disaster who seek through the courts to have pension and benefit arrears awarded from the State, could have criminal investigations initiated against them.

Yefremov stated that a specially created working group should regulate payments for those entitled to benefits. “There should be an individual approach in each case. For certain categories pensions will remain, for some categories they might even be increased, while in some I would not even exclude the possibility that criminal investigations will be initiated in order to bring some people down to earth a bit”.

“Because it’s impossible for a person to win a pension of 33 thousand through the court, there must be some justice in the country”.

The government will be separately considering the amount of compensation for the 48 thousand people who took direct part in the rescue clean up at Chernobyl.  He said also that after mass appeals from Veterans of the Afghanistan War and Chernobyl Rescue Workers, the adoption of a law cancelling benefits has been suspended.

There have been major protests throughout the country over the planned move.