Unjustified enrichment and restitution in social security legal relations

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of the grounds and prospects for the use of the mechanism of restitution in the law of social security. The authors argue that the industry has developed a need for a legal structure regulating cases of unjustified or excessive provision of social security to citizens. This thesis is illustrated by an analysis of current regulatory legal acts and emerging judicial practice. In resolving disputes of the category considered in the article, the courts took the path of borrowing a private law mechanism of restitution, which is generally supported by the authors. At the same time, the article focuses on the need to comply with the rules developed by science for borrowing private law structures by social security law, including ensuring the sectoral adaptation of the implemented legal instrument. In this regard, the authors draw attention to the position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, formulated in Resolution of 14.01.2016 no. 1-P. In the work, this position of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation is regarded as focusing on a specific industry adaptation of the borrowed legal structure of restitution for the purposes of social security law. The authors emphasize that when the parties to the social security legal relationship return to the state preceding the violation of the law, it is necessary to formalize the distribution of the burden of adverse consequences of the error of the authorized body on the basis of the general legal principle of justice, excluding a formal approach to resolving the legal situation. This involves taking into account the specifics of the life situation in which the citizen is, the duration of the period during which he received the social payment assigned by mistake, as well as other significant circumstances.