The Pension Process: A New Turn in the Old Discussion

The article examines the place and role in pension law, as a sub-branch of social security law, a sub-institution of the pension process, and also reveals its propaedeutics. This is preceded by a historical and legal analysis of the views and ideas about this legal subinstitution existing in the science of social security law. New foundations are revealed that were formed after the emergence and development of the previous scientific discourse, which determine the expediency of introducing the concept of ‘pension process’ into legal use as a generalizing, generic term. A modern definition of this term is given, and its constituent elements (actions), stages and terms are also revealed. The author understands the pension process as the procedure for citizens to exercise their right to a pension, carried out through procedural actions established by law, performed by subjects of pension legal relations in a certain sequence (stages of the pension process) and within certain time limits (procedural terms). The pension process in its structure is a set of certain legal procedures, which exemplifies the historical dispute about process and procedure. On the one hand, the process (in its semantic meaning) is broader than just a procedure (the process makes it possible to link several separate procedures into a single whole). A procedure is a separate, isolated, independent action, and a process is their interconnection, complex, system. A procedure is a specific procedural action or action within a broader legal process. That is, a procedure is a more technical concept than a process. On the other hand, the term ‘process’ allows us to reflect in the definition of the phenomenon under consideration the dynamics and sequence of such procedures in order to achieve a common goal — pension provision for a person.