Pensions
RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE DOMESTIC LAWConstitutional provisions Constitutional provisions Constitutional provisions 60. On 4 May 1990, the Supreme Council of the “Latvian SSR” adopted the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia ( Deklarācija “ Par Latvijas Republikas neatkarības atjaunošanu ”). It was noted in its Preamble that the establishment of the State of Latvia had been proclaimed on 18 November 1918, that in 1920 Latvia had been internationally recognised, and that in 1921 it had become a member of the League of Nations. It was further noted in the Preamble that: “Hence, according to international law, the incorporation of Latvia into the Soviet Union is invalid. Accordingly, the Republic of Latvia continues to exist de jure as a subject of international law, and it is recognised as such by more than 50 nations of the world.” 61. The operative provisions of the Declaration of 4 May 1990 read as follows: “The Supreme Council of the Latvian SSR decides : (1) in recognition of the supremacy of international law over the provisions of national law, to consider illegal the Pact of 23 August 1939 between the USSR and Germany and the subsequent liquidation of the sovereignty of the Republic of Latvia through the USSR’s military aggression on 17 June 1940; (2) to declare null and void the Declaration by the Parliament [ Saeima ] of Latvia, adopted on 21 July 1940, on Latvia’s integration into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; (3) to restore the legal effect of the Constitution [ Satversme ] of the Republic of Latvia, adopted on 15 February 1922 by the Constituent Assembly [ Satversmes sapulce ], throughout the entire territory of Latvia. The official name of the Latvian State shall be the REPUBLIC of LATVIA, abbreviated to LATVIA; (4) to suspend the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia pending the adoption of a new version of the Constitution, with the exception of those Articles which define the constitutional and legal foundation of the Latvian State and which, in accordance with Article 77 of the same Constitution, may only be amended by referendum, namely: Article 1 – Latvia is an independent and democratic republic. Article 2 – The sovereign power of the State of Latvia is vested in the Latvian people. Article 3 – The territory of the State of Latvia, as established by international agreements, consists of Vidzeme, Latgale, Kurzeme and Zemgale. Article 6 – Parliament [ Saeima ] shall be elected in general, equal, direct and secret elections, based on proportional representation. Article 6 of the Constitution shall be applied after the restoration of the State and administrative structures of the independent Republic of Latvia, which will guarantee free elections; (5) to introduce a transition period for the re-establishment of the Republic of Latvia’s de facto sovereignty, which will end with the convening of the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia. During the transition period, supreme power shall be exercised by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia; (6) during the transition period, to accept the application of those constitutional and other legal provisions of the Latvian SSR which are in force in the territory of the Latvian SSR when the present Declaration is adopted, in so far as those provisions do not contradict Articles 1, 2, 3 and 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia. Disputes on matters relating to the application of legislative texts will be referred to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia. During the transition period, only the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia shall adopt new legislation or amend existing legislation; (7) to set up a commission to draft a new version of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia that will correspond to the current political, economic and social situation in Latvia; (8) to guarantee social, economic and cultural rights, as well as universally recognised political freedoms compatible with international instruments of human rights, to citizens of the Republic of Latvia and citizens of other States permanently residing in Latvia. This shall apply to citizens of the USSR who wish to live in Latvia without acquiring Latvian nationality; (9) to base relations between the Republic of Latvia and the USSR on the Peace Treaty of 11 August 1920 between Latvia and Russia, which is still in force and which recognises the independence of the Latvian State for all time. A governmental commission shall be set up to conduct the negotiations with the USSR.” 62. The operative provisions of the Constitutional Law of 21 August 1991 on the status of the Republic of Latvia as a State ( Konstitucionālais likums “Par Latvijas Republikas valstisko statusu” ) read as follows: “The Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia decides : (1) to declare that Latvia is an independent and democratic republic in which the sovereign power of the State of Latvia belongs to the Latvian people, the status of which as a State is defined by the Constitution of 15 February 1922; (2) to repeal Paragraph 5 of the Declaration of 4 May 1990 on the Restoration of the Independence of the Republic of Latvia, establishing a transition period for the de facto restoration of the Republic of Latvia’s State sovereignty; (3) until such time as the occupation and annexation is ended and Parliament is convened, supreme State power in the Republic of Latvia shall be fully exercised by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Latvia. Only those laws and decrees enacted by the supreme governing and administrative authorities of the Republic of Latvia shall be in force in its territory; (4) this Constitutional Law shall enter into force on the date of its enactment.” 63. The relevant provisions of the Latvian Constitution ( Satversme ) are worded as follows: Preamble (third paragraph) (Inserted by the Act of 19 June 2014) “The people of Latvia did not recognise the occupation regimes, resisted them and regained their freedom by restoring national independence on 4 May 1990 on the basis of continuity of the State. They honour their freedom fighters, commemorate victims of foreign powers, [and] condemn the Communist and Nazi totalitarian regimes and their crimes.” Article 91 (Inserted by the Act of 15 October 1998) “All persons in Latvia shall be equal before the law and the courts. Human rights shall be exercised without discrimination of any kind.” Article 109 (Inserted by the Act of 15 October 1998) “Everyone has the right to social assistance in the event of old age, incapacity to work, unemployment and in other cases provided for by law.” Provisions on the calculation of State pensionsSoviet law (before 1991) Soviet law (before 1991) Soviet law (before 1991) 64. Before 1991, persons resident in Latvian territory were covered by the same social security scheme as the rest of the population of the USSR. In particular, the pension system at the time was based not on the contribution principle but on the solidarity principle. All pensions were paid from Treasury funds, a portion of the State’s revenue being set aside for pensions. More specifically, employees themselves were not subject to social tax, which was paid by their employers. The social-insurance contributions paid by the various employers were transferred via trade unions to the USSR Treasury, managed by the USSR State Bank. Those funds were then redistributed among the SSRs for a variety of purposes, including the payment of retirement pensions, and the amount of a pension did not depend directly on the amount of tax previously paid to the tax authorities. There was also a personal income tax, part of which was paid to the USSR central tax authorities and the rest to the local tax authorities of the relevant SSR. However, personal income-tax revenues were practically never used for pension payments (for more precise details on the legal provisions applicable during the Soviet period, see Andrejeva, cited above, §§ 26 ‑ 32). The 1990 and 1995 State Pensions Acts 65. The main instrument governing pensions is the State Pensions Act of 2 November 1995 ( Likums « Par valsts pensijām » ), which came into force on 1 January 1996, repealing the previous Act passed in 1990. Section 3(1) of the Act provides that persons who have been covered by the compulsory insurance scheme are entitled to a State social-insurance pension. As a rule, the amount of the pension in each particular case depends on the period during which the entitled person, the employer or both paid, or are presumed to have paid, insurance contributions in respect of State pensions (section 9(1) and (2)). Evidence of this period is provided by data at the disposal of the State Social-Insurance Agency (section 10). 66. Matters relating to the reckoning of years of employment under the Soviet regime (prior to 1991) are governed by the transitional provisions of the Act. Paragraph 1 of these transitional provisions, as in force from 1 July 2008 until 18 July 2012, provided: “In the case of Latvian citizens, periods of employment and equivalent periods accrued in the territory of Latvia and of the former USSR up to 31 December 1990, as well as the aggregate period spent outside Latvia in the case specified in sub ‑ paragraph (10) of this paragraph, shall be counted towards the insurance period. In the case of foreign nationals, stateless persons and non-citizens of Latvia, the insurance period shall be composed of periods of employment and equivalent periods that have been accrued in the territory of Latvia, as well as the equivalent periods that have been accrued in the former USSR in the cases specified in sub-paragraphs (4) and (5) of this paragraph, and the aggregate period spent outside Latvia in the case specified in sub ‑ paragraph (10) of this paragraph. The following periods, which are treated as equivalent to employment, and which have been accrued up to 31 December 1990 – but in case of sub-paragraph (11) of this paragraph up to 31 December 1995 – shall be counting towards the insurance period: (1) mandatory active military service and alternative (work) service; (2) career service for soldiers and service for officers in the Army of the Republic of Latvia, for citizens of Latvia – also in the USSR Armed Forces, if as a result of their activities in the interests of Latvia they had been demoted or if they had been called up for active military service after serving their compulsory military service or after graduating a civil university ...; (3) rank and file service and position of unit commanding personnel in the institutions dealing with internal affairs, with the exception of the KGB [the State Security Committee]; (4) periods of study at higher-education institutions, and at other training institutions at post-secondary level, subject to a limit of five years in the case of qualifications requiring up to five years of study at the relevant time, and a limit of six years in the case of qualifications requiring more than five years of study at the relevant time; (5) periods of full-time doctoral studies, up to a maximum of three years, postgraduate education or ongoing vocational training; (6) individual work; (7) time spend caring for a disabled person with a category I disability status, a disabled child up to the age of 16, as well as a person who has reached 80 years of age; (8) time spent by a mother raising a child up to the age of eight years; (9) gainful employment in religious organisations; (10) time spent in places of detention by victims of political persecution ... in exile, and time spent escaping from such places, those periods to be multiplied by three, or by five in the case of time spent in the [Soviet] Far North and regions treated as equivalent ... (11) time when an insured person was given a disability status of category I, II or III and did not work (including due to an accident at work or occupational illness), but no longer than up to reaching the retirement age; ... (12) employment in the status of a member of a collective farm ( kolkhoz ) from the age of 16.” 67. In other words, with respect to Latvian citizens, all of the defined employment and equivalent periods accrued prior to 1991 in the territory of the former USSR are taken into account in the calculation of their pension. In contrast, with respect to the “permanently resident non-citizens” the employment periods accrued outside the territory of Latvia are not counted towards their insurance period, and from the equivalent periods only those mentioned in subparagraphs 4, 5, and 10 are taken into account. If a “permanently resident non-citizen” obtains Latvian citizenship by way of naturalisation, he or she also starts receiving pension in respect of the employment periods accrued outside Latvia, but only ex nunc; the recalculation of the amount of the pension has no retroactive effect. 68. Under paragraph 7 of the above-mentioned transitional provisions: “The following shall be deemed to constitute evidence of periods of employment accrued before 31 December 1995: (1) an employment record [ darba grāmatiņa ]; (2) a record of employment contracts [ darba līgumu grāmatiņa ]; (3) a document certifying payment of social-insurance contributions; (4) any other evidence of periods of employment (such as certificates, contracts of employment or documents certifying performance of work).” 69. In order to clarify the application of the provisions cited above, on 23 April 2002 the Cabinet adopted Regulation no. 165 on the procedure for certifying, calculating and monitoring insurance periods ( Apdrošināšanas periodu pierādīšanas, aprēķināšanas un uzskaites kārtība ). Rule 21 of this regulation states that any work carried out for entities situated in Latvian territory is to be treated as “employment in Latvia”. INTERNATIONAL LAW AND PRACTICENationalityThe case-law of the International Court of Justice NationalityThe case-law of the International Court of Justice The case-law of the International Court of Justice NationalityThe case-law of the International Court of Justice The case-law of the International Court of Justice The case-law of the International Court of Justice 70. In the Nottebohm Case ( Liechtenstein v. Guatemala, judgment of 6 April 1955, ICJ Reports 1955), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded as follows. “It is for Liechtenstein, as it is for every sovereign State, to settle by its own legislation the rules relating to the acquisition of its nationality, and to confer that nationality by naturalization granted by its own organs in accordance with that legislation. It is not necessary to determine whether international law imposes any limitations on its freedom of decision in this domain. Furthermore, nationality has its most immediate, its most far-reaching and, for most people, its only effects within the legal system of the State conferring it. Nationality serves above all to determine that the person upon whom it is conferred enjoys the rights and is bound by the obligations which the law of the State in question grants to or imposes on its nationals. This is implied in the wider concept that nationality is within the domestic jurisdiction of the State. ... According to the practice of States, to arbitral and judicial decisions and to the opinions of writers, nationality is a legal bond having as its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence, interests and sentiments, together with the existence of reciprocal rights and duties. It may be said to constitute the juridical expression of the fact that the individual upon whom it is conferred, either directly by the law or as the result of an act of the authorities, is in fact more closely connected with the population of the State conferring nationality than with that of any other State. Conferred by a State, it only entitles that State to exercise protection vis-à-vis another State, if it constitutes a translation into juridical terms of the individual’s connection with the State which has made him its national. ... Naturalisation is not a matter to be taken lightly. To seek and to obtain it is not something that happens frequently in the life of a human being. It involves his breaking of a bond of allegiance and his establishment of a new bond of allegiance. It may have far-reaching consequences and involve profound changes in the destiny of the individual who obtains it. It concerns him personally, and to consider it only from the point of view of its repercussions with regard to his property would be to misunderstand its profound significance. In order to appraise its international effect, it is impossible to disregard the circumstances in which it was conferred, the serious character which attached to it, the real and effective, and not merely the verbal preference of the individual seeking it for the country which grants it to him.” The European Convention on Nationality 71. The principal Council of Europe document concerning nationality is the European Convention on Nationality (ETS No. 166), which was adopted on 6 November 1997 and came into force on 1 March 2000. It has been ratified by twenty member States of the Council of Europe. Latvia signed this Convention on 30 May 2001 but has not ratified it. 72. The relevant Articles of this Convention read as follows. Article 2 – Definitions “For the purpose of this Convention: a. ’nationality’ means the legal bond between a person and a State and does not indicate the person’s ethnic origin; ...” Article 3 – Competence of the State “1. Each State shall determine under its own law who are its nationals. 2. This law shall be accepted by other States in so far as it is consistent with applicable international conventions, customary international law and the principles of law generally recognised with regard to nationality.” Article 4 – Principles “The rules on nationality of each State Party shall be based on the following principles: a. everyone has the right to a nationality; b. statelessness shall be avoided; c. no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his or her nationality; d. neither marriage nor the dissolution of a marriage between a national of a State Party and an alien, nor the change of nationality by one of the spouses during marriage, shall automatically affect the nationality of the other spouse.” 73. The Explanatory Report to this Convention states, inter alia, in relation to Article 2: Article 2 – Definitions “22. The concept of nationality was explored by the International Court of Justice in the Nottebohm case. This court defined nationality as ‘a legal bond having as its basis a social fact of attachment, a genuine connection of existence, interests and sentiments, together with the existence of reciprocal rights and duties’ ( Nottebohm case, ICJ Reports 1955, p. 23). 23. Nationality’ is defined in Article 2 of the Convention as ‘the legal bond between a person and a State and does not indicate the person’s ethnic origin’. It thus refers to a specific legal relationship between an individual and a State which is recognised by that State. As already indicated in a footnote to paragraph 1 of this explanatory report, with regard to the effects of the Convention, the terms ‘nationality’ and ‘citizenship’ are synonymous.” The case-law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights 74. In Proposed Amendments to the Naturalisation Provision of the Constitution of Costa Rica (Advisory Opinion OC-4/84, 19 January 1984), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled as follows: “31. The questions posed by the Government involve two sets of general legal problems which the Court will examine separately. There is, first, an issue related to the right to nationality established by Article 20 of the Convention. A second set of questions involves issues of possible discrimination prohibited by the Convention. 32. It is generally accepted today that nationality is an inherent right of all human beings. Not only is nationality the basic requirement for the exercise of political rights, it also has an important bearing on the individual’s legal capacity. Thus, despite the fact that it is traditionally accepted that the conferral and regulation of nationality are matters for each state to decide, contemporary developments indicate that international law does impose certain limits on the broad powers enjoyed by the states in that area, and that the manners in which states regulate matters bearing on nationality cannot today be deemed within their sole jurisdiction; those powers of the state are also circumscribed by their obligations to ensure the full protection of human rights. 33. The classic doctrinal position, which viewed nationality as an attribute granted by the state to its subjects, has gradually evolved to the point that nationality is today perceived as involving the jurisdiction of the state as well as human rights issues. This has been recognized in a regional instrument, the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man of 2 May 1948 ... [text of Article 19]. Another instrument, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ... provides the following [text of Article 15]. 34. The right of every human being to a nationality has been recognized as such by international law. Two aspects of this right are reflected in Article 20 of the Convention: first, the right to a nationality established therein provides the individual with a minimal measure of legal protection in international relations through the link his nationality establishes between him and the state in question; and, second, the protection therein accorded the individual against the arbitrary deprivation of his nationality, without which he would be deprived for all practical purposes of all of his political rights as well as of those civil rights that are tied to the nationality of the individual. 35. Nationality can be deemed to be the political and legal bond that links a person to a given state and binds him to it with ties of loyalty and fidelity, entitling him to diplomatic protection from that state. In different ways, most states have offered individuals who did not originally possess their nationality the opportunity to acquire it at a later date, usually through a declaration of intention made after complying with certain conditions. In these cases, nationality no longer depends on the fortuity of birth in a given territory or on parents having that nationality; it is based rather on a voluntary act aimed at establishing a relationship with a given political society, its culture, its way of life and its values. 36. Since it is the state that offers the possibility of acquiring its nationality to persons who were originally aliens, it is natural that the conditions and procedures for its acquisition should be governed primarily by the domestic law of that state. As long as such rules do not conflict with superior norms, it is the state conferring nationality which is best able to judge what conditions to impose to ensure that an effective link exists between the applicant for naturalization and the systems of values and interests of the society with which he seeks to fully associate himself. That state is also best able to decide whether these conditions have been complied with. Within these same limits, it is equally logical that the perceived needs of each state should determine the decision whether to facilitate naturalization to a greater or lesser degree; and since a state’s perceived needs do not remain static, it is quite natural that the conditions for naturalization might be liberalized or restricted with the changed circumstances. It is therefore not surprising that at a given moment new conditions might be imposed to ensure that a change of nationality not be effected to solve some temporary problems encountered by the applicants when these have not established real and lasting ties with the country, which would justify an act as serious and far-reaching as the change of nationality.” 75. In Case of the Girls Yean and Bosico v. Dominican Republic (preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs), judgment of 8 September 2005, Series C No. 130, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled as follows (footnotes omitted): “139. The American Convention recognizes both aspects of the right to nationality: the right to have a nationality from the perspective of granting the individual a ‘minimal measure of legal protection in international relations through the link his nationality establishes between him and the State in question; and second the protection accorded the individual against the arbitrary deprivation of his nationality, without that are tied to the nationality of the individual’. 140. The determination of who has a right to be a national continues to fall within a State’s domestic jurisdiction. However, its discretional authority in this regard is gradually being restricted with the evolution of international law, in order to ensure a better protection of the individual in the face of arbitrary acts of States. Thus, at the current stage of the development of international human rights law, this authority of the States is limited, on the one hand, by their obligation to provide individuals with the equal and effective protection of the law and, on the other hand, by their obligation to prevent, avoid and reduce statelessness. 141. The Court considers that the peremptory legal principle of the equal and effective protection of the law and non-discrimination determines that, when regulating mechanisms for granting nationality, States must abstain from producing regulations that are discriminatory or have discriminatory effects on certain groups of population when exercising their rights. Moreover, States must combat discriminatory practices at all levels, particularly in public bodies and, finally, must adopt the affirmative measures needed to ensure the effective right to equal protection for all individuals. 142. States have the obligation not to adopt practices or laws concerning the granting of nationality, the application of which fosters an increase in the number of stateless persons. This condition arises from the lack of a nationality, when an individual does not qualify to receive this under the State’s laws, owing to arbitrary deprivation or the granting of a nationality that, in actual fact, is not effective. Statelessness deprives an individual of the possibility of enjoying civil and political rights and places him in a condition of extreme vulnerability.” 76. The principles emerging from the case-law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights concerning the right to nationality were confirmed in Expelled Dominicans and Haitians v. Dominican Republic (preliminary objections, merits, reparations and costs, judgment of 28 August 2014, Series C No. 282, §§ 253-64). State responsibility 77. The International Law Commission adopted the Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts (the ILC Articles) at its 53 rd session, in 2001 ( Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty ‑ sixth Session, Supplement No. 10 and corrigendum (A/56/10 and Corr.1)). They were submitted to the General Assembly which, in its resolution of 12 December 2001 (A/56/83 (2001)), took note of these articles and commended them to the attention of Governments. Article 2, entitled “Elements of an internationally wrongful act of a State”, provides: “There is an internationally wrongful act of a State when conduct consisting of an action or omission: (a) is attributable to the State under international law; and (b) constitutes a breach of an international obligation of the State.” 78. The Commentary, adopted together with the ILC Articles, further explains in relation to Article 2 (footnotes omitted): “(5) For particular conduct to be characterized as an internationally wrongful act, it must first be attributable to the State. The State is a real organized entity, a legal person with full authority to act under international law. But to recognize this is not to deny the elementary fact that the State cannot act of itself. An “act of the State” must involve some action or omission by a human being or group: “States can act only by and through their agents and representatives.” The question is which persons should be considered as acting on behalf of the State, i.e. what constitutes an “act of the State” for the purposes of State responsibility. (6) In speaking of attribution to the State what is meant is the State as a subject of international law. Under many legal systems, the State organs consist of different legal persons (ministries or other legal entities), which are regarded as having distinct rights and obligations for which they alone can be sued and are responsible. For the purposes of the international law of State responsibility the position is different. The State is treated as a unity, consistent with its recognition as a single legal person in international law. In this as in other respects the attribution of conduct to the State is necessarily a normative operation. What is crucial is that a given event is sufficiently connected to conduct (whether an act or omission) which is attributable to the State under one or other of the rules set out in chapter II. (7) The second condition for the existence of an internationally wrongful act of the State is that the conduct attributable to the State should constitute a breach of an international obligation of that State ... (12) In subparagraph (a), the term “attribution” is used to denote the operation of attaching a given action or omission to a State. In international practice and judicial decisions, the term “imputation” is also used. But the term “attribution” avoids any suggestion that the legal process of connecting conduct to the State is a fiction, or that the conduct in question is “really” that of someone else. (13) In subparagraph (b), reference is made to the breach of an international obligation rather than a rule or a norm of international law. What matters for these purposes is not simply the existence of a rule but its application in the specific case to the responsible State. The term “obligation” is commonly used in international judicial decisions and practice and in the literature to cover all the possibilities. The reference to an “obligation” is limited to an obligation under international law, a matter further clarified in article 3.” International agreements on social security concluded by Latvia 79. Mutual recognition of periods of employment to be taken into account in calculating State pensions is provided for in the cooperation agreements on social security which Latvia has concluded with Lithuania (in force since 31 January 1996), Estonia (in force since 29 January 1997), Ukraine (in force since 11 June 1999), Finland (in force since 1 June 2000) and Canada (in force since 1 November 2006). A similar agreement with the Netherlands (in force since 1 June 2005) prohibits any discrimination on the ground of place of residence. Since the delivery of the Court’s judgment in Andrejeva, cited above, further bilateral agreements have been concluded, most importantly with Belarus (in force since 28 September 2010) and with Russia (in force since 19 January 2011). 80. In particular, Article 3(1) of the cooperation agreement on social security between Latvia and the Russian Federation expressly extends its scope to “permanently resident non-citizens” of Latvia. Article 10(1) provides that, in calculating a retirement pension, each of the parties is to take into account the aggregate period of employment of the person concerned in both countries. Article 4(2) provides for an exception to the effect that the principle of equality between nationals and residents of both States does not apply to the specific arrangements for the calculation of Latvian citizens’ periods of employment prior to 1991. 81. Article 25 of the agreement shares the financial burden of retirement pensions between the two States where the person concerned has become entitled to such a pension after the agreement’s entry into force. The pension in respect of employment prior to 1 January 1991 is paid by the State in which the beneficiary is resident at the time of claiming the pension. However, in respect of the period after that date, each Contracting Party has undertaken to cover the periods of employment in its own territory. Article 26 states that a pension that had already been granted before the entry into force of the agreement may also be recalculated on that basis at the express request of the beneficiary; however, any such review can only take effect from the entry into force of the agreement. 82. The agreement with Belarus contains similar provisions. LAW AND PRACTICE of the institutions of the european communities and the european unionThe Court of Justice of the European Union The Court of Justice of the European Union The Court of Justice of the European Union 83. In case C-135/08 Janko Rottmann v. Freistaat Bayern (judgment of 2 March 2010), the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled as follows (references omitted): “45. Thus, the Member States must, when exercising their powers in the sphere of nationality, have due regard to European Union law ... ... 48. The proviso that due regard must be had to European Union law does not compromise the principle of international law previously recognised by the Court, ..., that the Member States have the power to lay down the conditions for the acquisition and loss of nationality, but rather enshrines the principle that, in respect of citizens of the Union, the exercise of that power, in so far as it affects the rights conferred and protected by the legal order of the Union, as is in particular the case of a decision withdrawing naturalisation such as that at issue in the main proceedings, is amenable to judicial review carried out in the light of European Union law. ... 55. In such a case, it is, however, for the national court to ascertain whether the withdrawal decision at issue in the main proceedings observes the principle of proportionality so far as concerns the consequences it entails for the situation of the person concerned in the light of European Union law, in addition, where appropriate, to examination of the proportionality of the decision in the light of national law.” The European Parliament 84. The relevant parts of the Resolution of the European Parliament regarding the Baltic States, adopted on 13 January 1983 (1982-1983 EUR.PARL.DOC (no.7.908) 432-33 (9183)), read as follows: “The European Parliament, ... Having regard to the bilateral peace treaties between the Soviet Union and the Baltic states in Dorpat (February 2, 1920), Moscow (July 12, 1920) and Riga (August 11, 1920), in which the Soviet Union guaranteed the three Baltic states the inviolability of their territory and eternal peace, Having regard to Article VIII of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference on Security and Cooperation, which secures the right of self-determination of peoples and their right, in full freedom, to determine, when and as they wish, their internal and external political status, Condemning the fact that the occupation of these formerly independent and neutral states by the Soviet Union occurred in 1940 pursuant to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and continues, Whereas the Soviet annexation of the three Baltic states has still not been formally recognised by most European states and the USA, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Vatican still adhere to the concept of Baltic states, ... Calls on the Conference of Foreign Minister meeting in political cooperation to attempt to form a common favourable approach to the declaration addressed to the United Nations in 1979, Suggests that they submit the issue of the Baltic states to the Decolonisation Subcommittee on the U.N., ... Expresses the hope that the Conference of Foreign Ministers will use their best endeavours to see that the aspirations of the peoples of these states as to their form of government is realised, Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Foreign Ministers of the Member States of the European Community meeting in political cooperation, and to the governments of the Member States.” REPORTS AND RESOLUTIONS OF COUNCIL OF EUROPE BODIESThe Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe 85. Resolution 189 (1960) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, entitled “Situation in the Baltic States on the twentieth anniversary of their forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union”, adopted on 29 September 1960, reads as follows: “1. The Assembly, 2. On the twentieth anniversary of the occupation and forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union of the three European States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, 3. Notes that this illegal annexation took place without any genuine reference to the wishes of the people; 4. Expresses sympathy with the sufferings of the Baltic peoples and assures them that they are not forgotten by their fellow Europeans; 5. Is confident that Communist oppression will not succeed in crushing their spirit and faith in freedom and democracy; 6. Notes that the independent existence of the Baltic States is still recognised de jure by a great majority of the Governments of the nations of the free world; 7. Urges member Governments to support appropriate efforts of Baltic refugees to maintain their natural culture, traditions and languages, in anticipation of the time when Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will be able to play their part as free nations in our democratic international institutions.” 86. The relevant parts of Resolution 872(1987) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, entitled “Situation of the Baltic peoples”, adopted on 28 January 1987, read as follows: “The Assembly, ... 3. Recalling that the incorporation of the three Baltic states into the Soviet Union was and still is a flagrant violation of the right to self-determination of peoples, and that it remains unrecognised by the great majority of European states and many members of the international community; 4. Considering that the elimination of the international problems created by this incorporation demands solutions on the basis of the international obligations entered into by the Soviet Union and other members of the international community; ... 6. Deploring the fact that, as a result of forced immigration into their area, the Baltic peoples are brought under pressure to assimilate, and that the lack of possibilities for education and cultural expression of their own is leading towards the loss of national identity; ... 12. Appeals to the Government of the Soviet Union to respect the right to self ‑ determination and the human rights in the Baltic states; 13. Invites the governments of member states of the Council of Europe at the CSCE Conference in Vienna and, if need be, at further CSCE meetings to draw the attention of participating states to the serious violations of human rights and the right to self ‑ determination in the three Baltic states.” The European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) 87. On 9 December 2011 the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) during the fourth monitoring cycle adopted a report on Latvia, which includes an assessment of the situation following the adoption of the Andrejeva judgment (emphasis as in the original): “129. ECRI would also like to express its concern in connection with certain measures taken by the Latvian authorities further to the [Court’s] judgment in Andrejeva v. Latvia ... ECRI was informed that further to this judgment, the authorities submitted amendments to the State Pensions Act which “levelled down” the pension entitlements for both citizens and “non-citizens”, thus treating citizens less favourably than before. These amendments are still pending. ECRI once again stresses the negative impact that the amendments, should they be adopted, may have on interethnic relations. 130. ECRI notes that in February 2011, the Constitutional Court declared that the provision of the State Pensions Act that was of issue in Andrejeva v. Latvia was not in breach of the Latvian Constitution. The court rejected the claims of the applicants (similar to those of Andrejeva) on grounds that Ms Andrejeva’s case was exceptional for she was physically working in the territory of Latvia. ECRI observes that the Constitutional Court’s decision, at best, gives a very narrow interpretation of the [Court’s] judgment. 131. Furthermore, ECRI has been informed that bilateral agreements have been signed with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus in order to cover “non-citizens” pensions for employment periods spent in former USSR republics. ECRI notes that this approach, while positive for those who have worked in the above republics and who would otherwise have received a curtailed pension, fails to address the “non-citizens” who have worked in the remaining 9 former USSR republics, in respect of which a bilateral agreement has not been signed. This, according to the [Court’s] Andrejeva judgment, amounts to discrimination. 132. ECRI recommends that the Latvian authorities implement the judgment of the [Court] in a manner that will not have a negative impact on interethnic relations, namely by using it to reduce existing pension entitlements of citizens .” 88. Following the fifth monitoring cycle, the ECRI report on Latvia, adopted on 4 December 2018, includes the following assessment of the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” of Latvia (footnotes omitted; emphasis as in the original): “Non-citizens” 55. According to the CSB January 2017 data, there were 222 847 so-called “non ‑ citizens” residing in Latvia, accounting for 11.4% of the country’s population. The majority of them are ethnic Russians. They are a special category of persons, citizens of the former USSR who were residents in Latvia on 1 July 1991 and who do not possess citizenship of any other country. The term “non-citizens” does not cover foreign nationals. Although they do not have the same rights as citizens, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) points out that the “non-citizens” enjoy the right to reside in Latvia ex lege and a set of rights and obligations generally beyond the rights prescribed by the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, including protection from removal, and as such the “non-citizens” may currently be considered persons to whom the Convention does not apply in accordance with its Article 1.2(ii). 56. Since ECRI’s last report, the number of “non-citizens” has further declined (326 735 persons in 2011, who then made up 14.6% of the population). This is partially due to demographic factors and mortality, as around 40% of “non-citizens” are 60 years or older. At the same time, the number of naturalisations has also declined but now stabilised at approximately 1 000 per year. According to the authorities, 98% of “non ‑ citizen” applicants pass the necessary naturalisation exams, although not all of them on their first attempt. According to a 2016 survey carried out by the Office for Citizenship and Migration Affairs, among “non-citizens”, the personal reasons why respondents did not want to apply for naturalisation have changed. In previous years, the Latvian language requirement and the fees had been mentioned as obstacles. These no longer feature strongly among the reasons given. Instead, the advantages of visa-free travel to the Russian Federation and eligibility for a then more advantageous Russian pension are highlighted by many respondents. In addition, many “non-citizens” refuse to apply for naturalisation out of principle, as they believe they should be granted Latvian citizenship automatically. These reasons and sentiments were also confirmed to ECRI by various representatives of “non-citizen” organisations. 57. The Latvian authorities underlined that instead of making the “non-citizen” status more equal to that of citizens, it is their stated aim to eventually abolish this category by promoting and facilitating naturalisations ... ... 59. Further steps taken by the authorities to promote the naturalisations of “non ‑ citizens” include information-days organised in municipalities with a high proportion of “non-citizens” among the residents, during which details of the naturalisation process are explained. The authorities, through the Society Integration Fund, also provide free Latvian language classes for “non-citizens” in preparation for their naturalisation exams, as recommended by ECRI in its last report. While ECRI commends the authorities for this measure, it also received information that these language classes, at times, fill up very quickly, resulting in insufficient capacity for all “non-citizens” who wish to enrol. This problem might grow, if the authorities’ efforts to promote naturalisation are successful. 60. ECRI recommends that the authorities ensure that sufficient places are available for “non-citizens” wishing to enrol in Latvian language courses free of charge in preparation for their naturalisation exams. ” The Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) 89. The Advisory Committee on the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM), second opinion on Latvia, adopted on 18 June 2013, includes the following assessment (footnotes omitted): “139. The Advisory Committee further notes research pointing to differences among ethnic groups also with regard to access to social services, mainly due to the fact that Latvians are better informed of their rights and have the relevant networks to insist on obtaining the social assistance that is available. It refers in this context in particular to the large elderly population among national minorities that still faces considerable language barriers. Regarding access to pensions, the Advisory Committee regrets that the 2009 Andrejeva judgment of the [Court] has not led to a comprehensive solution regarding the calculation of pensions of citizens and “non-citizens”. It notes the Government’s view that the judgment has been implemented by signing bilateral agreements with the Russian Federation and a number of other countries in which “non ‑ citizens” spent periods of employment under the Soviet Union, but remains concerned by the fact that these agreements do not cover all former republics of the Soviet Union and are therefore not suitable to address the situation vis-à-vis all “non ‑ citizens”.” THE LAW PRELIMINARY REMARKSThe first applicant’s death The first applicant’s death The first applicant’s death 90. The Court notes at the outset that the first applicant, Mr Jurijs Savickis, died while the application was pending before the Court, and that no heir or close relative has expressed the wish to pursue the application on his behalf (see paragraph 20 above). It is the Court’s usual practice to strike applications out of the list of cases in the absence of any heir or close relative who has expressed the wish to pursue an application (see, among many other examples, Mraović v. Croatia (striking out) [GC], no. 30373/13, § 24, 9 April 2021). The Court finds no special circumstances regarding respect for human rights as defined in the Convention and its Protocols that would require the Court to continue the examination of that part of the application pursuant to Article 37 § 1 in fine of the Convention. It is therefore appropriate to strike this particular application out of the list of cases in so far as the first applicant is concerned (Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention). 91. Nevertheless, for practical reasons, Mr Savickis will continue to be called “the first applicant” in the present judgment, and the name of the case will not be changed (see, mutatis mutandis, Ahmet Sadık v. Greece, 15 November 1996, § 3, Reports 1996-V; Dalban v. Romania [GC], no. 28114/95, § 1, ECHR 1999-VI; Vasiljević and Drobnjaković v. Serbia (dec.), nos. 43987/11 and 51910/15, § 42, 28 January 2020; and Ghavalyan v. Armenia, no. 50423/08, § 60, 22 October 2020). Any mention of “the applicants” in the remainder of this judgment must be understood as referring to the four remaining applicants. Scope of the caseThe parties’ arguments The parties’ arguments The parties’ arguments 92. The respondent Government argued, first of all, that the scope of the case should be limited to those complaints which the applicants had brought before the District Administrative Court and the Constitutional Court. Accordingly, the case should be limited to the employment periods and the years of compulsory military service which had accrued outside the territory of Latvia prior to 1 January 1991 and were not included in the calculation of the relevant retirement pensions. 93. Regarding the scope of the present case, the respondent Government emphasised that its subject matter was neither an entitlement to an old-age pension – as each of the applicants was insured and received an old-age pension – nor any difference between the applicants and Latvian nationals in respect of the period since the restoration of Latvia’s independence in 1990 ‑ 91. Instead, the dispute is whether, in calculating supplements to the applicants’ pensions paid by Latvia, the Latvian authorities were obliged, under the relevant rules and principles of international law, to take account of employment and military service carried out outside Latvia during Latvia’s illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union. 94. The applicants submitted that their requests before the Court were the same as those raised before the domestic authorities. They also noted that the conclusions made by the Court in the case of Andrejeva v. Latvia [GC], (no. 55707/00, ECHR 2009) were applicable to every “permanently resident non-citizen” of Latvia. Furthermore, the same discriminatory distinction was made in calculating the disability pension and the widow’s pension, as well as in calculating unemployment benefits. The Court’s assessment 95. The Court reiterates that, for the purposes of Article 32 of the Convention, the scope of a case “referred to” it in the exercise of the right of individual application is determined by the applicant’s complaint or “claim”, which consists of two elements: factual allegations and legal arguments. By virtue of the jura novit curia principle the Court is not bound by the legal grounds adduced by the applicant under the Convention and the Protocols thereto. In contrast, the Court cannot rule beyond or outside what is alleged by the applicants. Thus, it cannot rule on the basis of facts not covered by the complaint, it being understood that while the Court has jurisdiction to review circumstances complained of in the light of the entirety of the Convention or to “view the facts in a different manner”, it is nevertheless limited by the facts presented by the applicants (see Denis and Irvine v. Belgium [GC], nos. 62819/17 and 63921/17, §§ 99-101, 1 June 2021). 96. The Court notes that both the applicants’ constitutional complaints and the scope of review by the Constitutional Court encompassed all the employment periods and equivalent periods, as provided for in Paragraph 1 of the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act. While only employment periods, compulsory military service, and parental leave periods were relevant in respect of the applicants, this distinction was not made by the Constitutional Court in its judgment. Additionally, the refusal to award an early retirement pension was the subject matter of the third applicant’s constitutional complaint and thus this matter also falls within the scope of the review before the Court. 97. Moreover, the Court has consistently held in its case-law that the Convention does not provide for the institution of an actio popularis and that its task is not normally to review the relevant law and practice in abstracto, but to determine whether the manner in which they were applied to or affected the applicants gave rise to a violation of the Convention (see Roman Zakharov v. Russia [GC], no. 47143/06, § 164, ECHR 2015, with further references). While the present case only deals with the calculation of the applicants’ retirement pensions and the entitlement to early retirement pension, the Court notes that the impugned legal provision –Paragraph 1 of the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act – serves to determine the “insurance period”, which might then be used for a variety of calculations for the purposes of attributing welfare benefits. Therefore, the Court observes that at the domestic level, the problem might indeed be broader than the issues put before it in the present case. Of course, as it has just emphasised, the Court must act within the confines of the present case. However, as with most complaints of alleged discrimination in a welfare or pensions system, the issue before the Court for consideration goes to the compatibility of the system with Article 14, not to the individual facts or circumstances of the particular applicants or of others who are or might be affected by the legislation. It is therefore appropriate to look at the system as a whole (see British Gurkha Welfare Society and Others v. the United Kingdom, no. 44818/11, § 63, 15 September 2016, and J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, nos. 32949/17 and 34614/17, § 100, 24 October 2019). Latvia’s State continuity doctrineThe parties’ arguments The parties’ arguments The parties’ arguments (a) The respondent Government 98. The respondent Government considered that the State continuity doctrine, as expounded in the judgment of the Constitutional Court of 17 February 2011, is of utmost importance and must be taken into account by the Court in order to reach an equitable solution of the present case. In this regard, the respondent Government recalled the historical events as summarised in paragraphs 12-14 above. They noted that for fifty years (from 1940 until 1990-91), the entire territory of Latvia was under unlawful occupation and effective physical control by the USSR, in clear violation of international law. Nevertheless, according to the doctrine of State continuity, the Republic of Latvia continued to exist de jure throughout this period of occupation and annexation. 99. For the same reason, Latvia is not and cannot be a successor to the rights and liabilities of the former Soviet Union. In the light of the customary rules of State responsibility under international law, any legal obligations directly emanating from the above violation of international law, including those related to payments of social security benefits, fall to the occupying State which exercised effective control and jurisdiction over the territories and persons during the years in question, namely, the USSR and its successor, the Russian Federation. In this regard, the respondent Government referred to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice in the Namibia case ( Advisory Opinion on Legal Consequences for States of the Continued Presence of South Africa in Namibia (South West Africa) Notwithstanding Security Council Resolution 276 (1970), [1971], ICJ Reports 16, p. 56), as well as to the Court’s own judgments in the cases of Cyprus v. Turkey [GC] (no. 25781/94, ECHR 2001 ‑ IV); Catan and Others v. the Republic of Moldova and Russia [GC] (nos. 43370/04 and 2 others, ECHR 2012 (extracts)); and Ukraine v. Russia (re Crimea) [GC] (dec.) (nos. 20958/14 and 38334/18, 16 December 2020). Since Latvia did not exercise such effective control or jurisdiction, no obligation in the field of social security for the disputed years could fall on this State. To conclude otherwise would lead to a manifestly unreasonable interpretation of the Convention, that is, directly deriving a legal benefit from an illegal act, in violation of the legal maxim “ ex injuria ius non oritur ”. (b) The applicants 100. The applicants considered that the State continuity doctrine was not relevant for the purposes of the present case. Although the Republic of Latvia was indeed not directly responsible for the actions of the former Soviet Union, it could not simply ignore the de facto interruption of its statehood for fifty years. Moreover, Latvia was required to fulfil obligations in the field of fundamental rights that it had undertaken both at the domestic level and by ratifying the Convention. Even if Latvia was not a successor State to the USSR, it had expressly assumed responsibility for former Soviet citizens who settled in that country during the Soviet period. In this regard, the applicants referred to the Declaration of 4 May 1990 on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia, in which Latvia expressly took the commitment “to guarantee social, economic and cultural rights ... to citizens of the USSR who wish to live in Latvia without acquiring Latvian nationality” (see paragraph 61 above). The applicants therefore invited the Court to reaffirm its finding in the Andrejeva judgment according to which the respondent Government’s reference to the State continuity doctrine is “misconceived” (ibid., § 78). Submissions of the third-party intervener 101. The Russian Government stated that, during the period in question, Latvia had been a full-fledged part of the Soviet Union. They submitted that the terms “Soviet occupation”, “Sovietisation” and “Russification” were controversial and extra-legal categories which could not justify the application of discriminatory provisions thirty years after Latvia had become independent. The Court’s assessment 102. The Court points out that its jurisdiction is delineated by Article 19 of the Convention, according to which its sole duty is “[t]o ensure the observance of the engagements undertaken by the High Contracting Parties in the Convention and the Protocols thereto”. Accordingly, the Court is not empowered to pass formal judgment on the legality or legitimacy of any transfer of sovereignty under international law (see Ukraine v. Russia (re Crimea) [GC] (dec.), nos. 20958/14 and 38334/18, § 339, 16 December 2020), be it current or historical. Moreover, in principle, given the subsidiary nature of the Convention system, it is not the Court’s task to substitute itself for the domestic courts, particularly in cases where they assess facts of some historical sensitivity (see, among many other authorities, Vasiliauskas v. Lithuania [GC] (no. 35343/05, § 160, ECHR 2015). 103. On the other hand, the Court has always held that the provisions of the Convention cannot be interpreted and applied in a vacuum. Despite its specific character as a human rights instrument, the Convention is an international treaty to be interpreted in accordance with the relevant norms and principles of public international law. Thus, the Court has never considered the provisions of the Convention to be the sole frame of reference for the interpretation of the rights and freedoms enshrined therein. On the contrary, it must also take into account any relevant rules and principles of international law applicable in relations between the Contracting Parties (see, among many other authorities, Al-Dulimi and Montana Management Inc. v. Switzerland [GC], no. 5809/08, § 134, 21 June 2016, and Naït-Liman v. Switzerland [GC], no. 51357/07, § 174, 15 March 2018). The Court has also repeatedly held that, while it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by national courts – unless and in so far as they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention and unless that domestic assessment is arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable – it can accept certain well-known historical truths and base its reasoning on them. This principle also applies where domestic law refers to rules of general international law or international agreements, and where domestic courts apply principles of international law (see Vasiliauskas, cited above, ibid., with further references). However, the Court is empowered to do so in so far as and only to the extent necessary for the exercise of its competence under Article 19 of the Convention as defined above (see Ukraine v. Russia (re Crimea), decision cited above, § 341). 104. As far as Latvia is concerned, the Court notes that its official position as expounded in the judgment of the Constitutional Court of 17 February 2011 and in the written observations of the respondent Government in the present case (see paragraphs 55 and 98-99 above) may be summarised as follows. Latvia (as well as the neighbouring Baltics States of Lithuania and Estonia) was a victim of aggression, unlawful occupation and annexation on the part of the former Soviet Union, starting from 1940. Therefore, Latvia is not a successor state to the USSR; it retains the statehood that existed when its independence was lost de facto in 1940 but which nevertheless remained in place de jure throughout the entire Cold War period. In other words, Latvia never disappeared de jure, although its independence was forcibly interrupted de facto for a half-century as a result of a blatant breach of international law. 105. The Court notes that it has itself repeatedly referred to the version of historical events as described above in the “Facts” part of its judgments and decisions in cases against the three Baltic States (see Kolk and Kislyiy v. Estonia (dec.), nos. 23052/04 and 24018/04, ECHR 2006 ‑ I; Penart v. Estonia (dec.), nos. 14685/04, 24 January 2006; Ždanoka v. Latvia [GC] (no. 58278/00, §§ 12-13, ECHR 2006 ‑ IV); Kuolelis and Others v. Lithuania (nos. 74357/01 and 2 others, § 8, 19 February 2008); Vasiliauskas, cited above, §§ 11-14; and Sõro v. Estonia (no. 22588/08, § 6, 3 September 2015). Moreover, in one case, the Court itself defined the situation of Latvia (and therefore of all three Baltic States) as “unlawful occupation” (see Likvidējamā p/s Selga and Vasiļevska v. Latvia (dec.), nos. 17126/02 and 24991/02, § 5, 1 October 2013). Finally, the European Commission of Human Rights clearly stated that “Lithuania [could not] be seen as a successor of the Soviet Union in respect of ... debts [arising from fixed term internal state bonds] and ha[d] not made any legal undertaking to compensate those of its citizens who [were] holders of the bonds” (see the Commission decision in Jasinskij v. Lithuania ((dec.), no. 38985/97, 9 September 1998). 106. The Court perceives no reason to depart from this assessment of the relevant historical facts as consistently described in its earlier judgments and decisions, especially since, so far as the Court can see, it corresponds to the general stance of the majority of the free democratic States of the world during the Cold War, as defined and summarised by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament (see paragraphs 84-86 above). It agrees with the respondent Government that this doctrine is prima facie relevant in the circumstances of the present case; accordingly, it will be duly taken into account when deciding on the merits of the application. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 14 OF THE CONVENTION, READ IN CONJUNCTION WITH ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL No. 1 to the convention 107. The applicants complained that, due to their status as “permanently resident non-citizens”, the employment and equivalent periods which they had accrued prior to 1991 outside the territory of Latvia in other parts of the former USSR had not been included in the calculation of the “insurance period” used as a reference in determining the amount of their retirement pensions and eligibility for an early retirement pension. Accordingly, they had been treated less favourably than citizens of Latvia, in breach of Article 14 of the Convention, taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. In so far as relevant, those provisions read as follows: Article 14 “The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as ... national or social origin, association with a national minority ... birth or other status.” Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 “1. Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.” 108. The respondent Government contested that argument, while the Russian Government as the third-party intervener supported it. AdmissibilityCompatibility ratione personae Compatibility ratione personae Compatibility ratione personae (a) The parties’ arguments 109. The respondent Government submitted that under Article 1 of the Convention Latvia could not be held responsible for the employment periods during which the applicants had resided and worked in various republics of the former USSR, but not in Latvia. The applicants’ claims concerned matters that could not be attributed to the Government of Latvia and manifestly fell outside its jurisdiction. In this regard, the Government emphasised the fact that the periods of employment contested by the applicants had been accrued while working for enterprises located in different parts of the former USSR, where, contrary to the circumstances in the Andrejeva case, they had worked for most of their lives, thereby investing in the economy and development of the respective foreign countries. The applicants invoked Latvia’s responsibility and jurisdiction for the entirety of their periods of employment only because they had spent the last years of their employment in Latvia. The claims adduced against Latvia manifestly contradicted the “generally accepted praxis” of States concerning retirement pension entitlements. 110. The respondent Government recognised that in the Andrejeva case, the objection ratione personae had been dismissed. However, in the present case, the applicants had not de facto resided in Latvia during the periods which they had asked to be included in the calculation. The respondent Government considered that the Court should follow the same approach it had taken in the case of Likvidējamā p/s Selga and Vasiļevska v. Latvia (dec.), cited above, where it had held that in the circumstances of the case Latvia could not incur responsibility under the Convention in relation to actions undertaken by an entity operating in another country. The Convention imposed no specific obligation on the States to right injustices or harm caused before they had ratified the Convention, and the undertaking by the Latvian authorities to provide some compensation could not be interpreted as implying that there was an obligation incumbent on Latvia under international law to make any payments at all. 111. The applicants pointed out that this exact argument had already been raised by the Government in the case of Andrejeva, and had been rejected by the Court. They submitted that the applicants’ residence over the contested time periods was of no relevance for the issue of jurisdiction. (b) The Court’s assessment 112. The Court notes that this argument is identical in substance to the objection already raised by the respondent Government in the Andrejeva case and rejected by the Court in the following terms (ibid. , § 57): “57. In the present case, the Court notes that the applicant complained about a measure taken in respect of her by a Latvian public authority – the State Social-Insurance Agency – refusing her part of the pecuniary benefit she had intended to draw from a Law passed by the Latvian Parliament. The dispute raised by the applicant in respect of that measure was examined by the three levels of Latvian courts, which delivered binding decisions on the subject. In the Court’s view, that is easily sufficient to warrant the conclusion that in the context of the present case, the applicant fell within the “jurisdiction” of the respondent State and that the Government’s objection should be dismissed (see, mutatis mutandis, Markovic and Others v. Italy [GC], no. 1398/03, §§ 54-56, ECHR 2006 ‑ XIV) ...” 113. It is true that the applicants in the present case were not physically present in Latvia during the time periods in question, in contrast to Ms Andrejeva. However, this does not alter the fact that they, as permanent residents of Latvia, are still claiming a financial benefit under Latvian law and contesting decisions taken in their regard by the Latvian authorities, including courts. In these circumstances, the Court does not see any difference between Andrejeva and the present case for the purposes of “jurisdiction” within the meaning of Article 1 of the Convention. As to the decision in the case of Likvidējamā p/s Selga and Vasiļevska, cited above and referred to by the respondent Government, the Court points out that the applicants in that case were owners of currency deposited with a foreign bank in another country; the key questions put before the Court were whether the respondent State could be held responsible for the freezing of those assets by that foreign bank, and whether it had any positive obligation under the Convention to take any particular measures in that respect (ibid., §§ 102 and 113). This being so, the Court fails to see the relevance of this reference for the issue at hand, these two cases being fundamentally different. 114. The Court therefore dismisses the respondent Government’s objection. Nevertheless, it considers that the arguments raised to support this objection are closely linked to the merits of the complaint under Article 14 of the Convention. Accordingly, just as it did in the Andrejeva case, the Court will have regard to them in determining whether there has been a violation of that Article (ibid., § 57 in fine ). Compatibility ratione materiae (a) The parties’ arguments (i) The respondent Government 115. The respondent Government submitted that the application was incompatible ratione materiae with the provisions of the Convention, as an alleged violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 had to relate to “possessions”, as defined by the case-law of the Court. There was no right under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to receive a social security benefit or pension payment of any kind or amount, unless national law provided for such an entitlement. 116. The respondent Government recognised that the Court had dismissed this argument in the Andrejeva case. However, they emphasised the nature of the alleged property right and the lack of legitimate expectations. Firstly, the additional undertaking by Latvia to provide financial compensation for the years of employment under the jurisdiction of the former Soviet Union in order to redress, at least in some way, the consequences of the years of unlawful occupation, could not be regarded as creating a property right for the applicants falling within the ambit of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The geopolitical and historical context ought not to be disregarded by the Court. The Court’s competence in the field of social security was not broad enough to make a State responsible for pecuniary interests originating under the jurisdiction of another State, particularly in view of the margin of appreciation afforded to States with regard to general measures of economic and social strategy. The applicants’ claims fell within the ambit of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention only to the extent that the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act granted them the right to receive retirement pension concerning the periods of employment in the territory of Latvia. 117. Moreover, the applicants could not have expected, and in fact did not expect, that Latvia would accept any responsibility for the employment periods in the territory of the former USSR. Ms Andrejeva had actually worked and resided in the territory of Latvia during the impugned time periods and had truly believed that these employment periods would be regarded as having been carried out in the territory of Latvia. She had immediately challenged before the administrative court the refusal to include those periods in the calculation of her pension. In contrast, the applicants in the present case had not challenged the accuracy of the calculations and interpretation of the domestic law in their regard. This demonstrated that the applicants had been fully aware that the domestic law had not entitled them to a retirement pension for their employment in the territory of the former USSR and they had had no expectation that Latvia would assume responsibility for those periods. Therefore, the applicants could not claim that the Latvian domestic law or practice had ever created any legitimate expectation that Latvia would assume responsibility for the payment of retirement pensions for work carried out under the jurisdiction of other States. Nor had such an expectation been created by the Court’s judgment in Andrejeva, given that the Court’s ruling had been based on the individual circumstances of that specific case. (ii) The applicants 118. The applicants noted that this objection had already been dismissed by the Grand Chamber in the case of Andrejeva, cited above. They pointed out that Paragraph 1 of the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act had created an entitlement to a retirement pension in respect of the employment and equivalent periods accrued prior to 1991 in the territory of the former USSR, but had reserved this right to the citizens of Latvia. By virtue of this provision the applicants had been refused a pension for those periods solely because they did not have Latvian citizenship. Had the applicants been Latvian citizens, the respective employment and equivalent periods accrued in the territory of the former USSR would be taken into account in calculating their “insurance period”, which was subsequently used to determine the entitlement to state pensions and the amount thereof. Hence, the applicants’ pecuniary interests fell within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No.1, which rendered Article 14 applicable. (b) The Court’s assessment 119. As a preliminary point, the Court reiterates that, as the question of applicability of a particular provision of the Convention or its Protocols is an issue of the Court’s jurisdiction ratione materiae, the general rule of dealing with applications should be respected and the relevant analysis should be carried out at the admissibility stage unless there is a particular reason to join this question to the merits. No such particular reason exists in the present case and the issue of the applicability of Article 14 of the Convention, read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, falls therefore to be decided at the admissibility stage (see Popović and Others v. Serbia, nos. 26944/13 and 3 others, § 46, 30 June 2020, and, mutatis mutandis, Denisov v. Ukraine [GC], no. 76639/11, § 93, 25 September 2018). 120. The Court reiterates that Article 14 of the Convention complements the other substantive provisions of the Convention and its Protocols. It has no independent existence since it has effect solely in relation to “the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms” safeguarded thereby. Although the application of Article 14 does not presuppose a breach of those provisions – and to this extent it is autonomous – there can be no room for its application unless the facts in issue fall within the ambit of one or more of them. The prohibition of discrimination enshrined in Article 14 thus extends beyond the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms which the Convention and the Protocols thereto require each State to guarantee. It applies also to those additional rights, falling within the general scope of any Convention Article, for which the State has voluntarily decided to provide (see, among many other authorities, Andrejeva, cited above, § 74; Carson and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 42184/05, § 63, ECHR 2010; Fábián v. Hungary [GC], no. 78117/13, § 112, 5 September 2017; and Molla Sali v. Greece [GC], no. 20452/14, § 123, 19 December 2018). 121. The Court notes that the respondent Government’s objection, like the previous one, is identical in substance to that already raised by the respondent Government in the Andrejeva case, cited above, and rejected by the Court in the following terms: “77. The Court has ... held that all principles which apply generally in cases concerning Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 are equally relevant when it comes to welfare benefits ... Thus, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 does not guarantee as such any right to become the owner of property ... Nor does it guarantee, as such, any right to a pension of a particular amount ... Similarly, the right to receive a pension in respect of activities carried out in a State other than the respondent State is not guaranteed either ... Furthermore, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 places no restriction on the Contracting State’s freedom to decide whether or not to have in place any form of social security scheme, or to choose the type or amount of benefits to provide under any such scheme. If, however, a Contracting State has in force legislation providing for the payment as of right of a welfare benefit – whether conditional or not on the prior payment of contributions – that legislation must be regarded as generating a pecuniary interest falling within the ambit of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 for persons satisfying its requirements ... 78. The Government submitted that, from the standpoint of public international law, Latvia had not inherited the rights and obligations of the former Soviet Union as regards welfare benefits. Having regard to its findings in Stec and Others v. the United Kingdom ((dec.) [GC], nos. 65731/01 and 65900/01, ECHR 2005 ‑ X), the Court considers that that argument is misconceived in the instant case. Even assuming that the Government were correct on this point, the conclusion that has to be drawn in this case would be unaffected: where a State decides of its own accord to pay pensions to individuals in respect of periods of employment outside its territory, thereby creating a sufficiently clear legal basis in its domestic law, the presumed entitlement to such benefits falls within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. In this connection, the Court notes that the first paragraph of the transitional provisions of the Latvian State Pensions Act creates an entitlement to a retirement pension in respect of aggregate periods of employment prior to 1991 in the territory of the former USSR (“outside Latvia” in the version in force before 1 January 2006), regardless of the payment of any kind of contributions, but that it reserves this right to Latvian citizens. By virtue of this provision, the applicant was refused the pension in question solely because she did not have Latvian citizenship. 79. In the Stec and Others decision (cited above, § 55) the Court held as follows: ‘In cases, such as the present, concerning a complaint under Article 14 in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that the applicant has been denied all or part of a particular benefit on a discriminatory ground covered by Article 14, the relevant test is whether, but for the condition of entitlement about which the applicant complains, he or she would have had a right, enforceable under domestic law, to receive the benefit in question ... Although [Article 1 of] Protocol No. 1 does not include the right to receive a social security payment of any kind, if a State does decide to create a benefits scheme, it must do so in a manner which is compatible with Article 14.’ 80. It follows that the applicant’s pecuniary interests fall within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and the right to the peaceful enjoyment of possessions which it safeguards. This is sufficient to render Article 14 of the Convention applicable.” 122. The Court does not see any difference between the case of Andrejeva and the present case regarding the applicability ratione materiae of Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. According to the Court’s well-established case-law, the prohibition of discrimination enshrined in Article 14 generally applies where a Contracting State has in force legislation providing for the payment as of right of a pension or another welfare benefit; that legislation must be regarded as generating a proprietary interest falling within the ambit of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 for persons satisfying its requirements. If, but for the condition of entitlement under domestic law about which the applicant complains, he or she would have had a right enforceable under domestic law to receive the benefit in question, his or her complaint falls within the scope of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and that is sufficient to render Article 14 of the Convention applicable ratione materiae (see J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 63). This being so, the Court cannot but dismiss the respondent Government’s objection for the same reasons as stated in §§ 77-80 of the Andrejeva judgment (see also, mutatis mutandis, Gaygusuz v. Austria (16 September 1996, § 40, Reports 1996 ‑ IV); Stummer v. Austria [GC], no. 37452/02, § 88, ECHR 2011; Fábián, cited above, § 117; and Ribać v. Slovenia, no. 57101/10, §§ 43-45, 15 December 2017). 123. As to the particular questions raised by the respondent Government, namely, to what extent the Court’s overall reasoning in Andrejeva was conditioned by the particular factual circumstances of that case, whether it is transposable to the present case, and whether the applicants might have had any “legitimate expectations” for the purposes of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 given their physical absence from the Latvian territory during the contested periods, these relate to the merits of the application and will be examined by the Court under the respective head. Six-month time-limit (a) The parties’ arguments 124. The respondent Government referred to the decisions whereby the second, the fourth and the fifth applicants had initially been granted their retirement pensions. As these applicants had not appealed against the relevant decisions, they had entered into force and should be regarded as the “final decisions” for the purposes of the six-month time-limit. The respondent Government also submitted that the applicants should have been well aware that their retirement pensions could only be recalculated on the basis of either the State Pensions Act or bilateral international agreements. Accordingly, their reopening requests before the administrative courts had had no legal basis and it had been inevitable that they would be dismissed. 125. With regard to the allegation that the Constitutional Court’s ruling of 17 February 2011 should be regarded as the final decision, the respondent Government noted that nothing had prevented the applicants from lodging a constitutional complaint immediately after their retirement pensions had been granted. The applicants had not adduced any arguments to justify their inactivity of up to ten years. 126. In the respondent Government’s view, both the reopening proceedings before the administrative courts and the constitutional proceedings were to be regarded as attempts by the applicants to comply belatedly with the procedural requirements and to restore the running of the six-month time-limit for the purposes of lodging the present application before the Court. 127. The applicants submitted that the remedies used by them had been the only available effective legal avenues and that they had exhausted them in compliance with the requirements of domestic law. The applicants pointed out that Paragraph 1 of the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act had already been declared constitutional by the Constitutional Court in 2001 in proceedings instituted by twenty members of Parliament (see paragraph 39 above). Accordingly, this claim had already been adjudicated and all the State authorities, including the courts, were bound by the Constitutional Court’s findings. Additionally, a claim having already been adjudicated was an inadmissibility ground under the Constitutional Court Act. The applicants pointed out that, unlike Ms Andrejeva, they disagreed with the contents of the domestic law rather than with its interpretation in their particular cases. 128. Only after the Court delivered its judgment in Andrejeva, cited above, did the legal circumstances change, permitting the applicants to request the reopening of their administrative proceedings. After their reopening requests had been refused the applicants brought constitutional proceedings, save for the third applicant who applied to the Constitutional Court directly. The Constitutional Court instituted the proceedings and delivered a judgment assessing the merits of the applicants’ complaint. The present application was filed within six months of that judgment. (b) The Court’s assessment 129. The Court notes at the outset that the respondent Government’s objection does not apply to the third applicant, who lodged his complaint directly to the Constitutional Court on 22 March 2010, that is, several months before the calculation of his retirement pension (see paragraphs 27 and 48 above). The Court will accordingly examine that objection as only concerning the second, the fourth and the fifth applicants. (i) General principles 130. The object of the time-limit under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention – six months at the time when the present applications were lodged – is to promote legal certainty, by ensuring that cases raising issues under the Convention are dealt with in a reasonable time and that past decisions are not continually open to challenge. It marks out the temporal limits of supervision carried out by the organs of the Convention and signals to both individuals and State authorities the period beyond which such supervision is no longer possible (see Sabri Güneş v. Turkey [GC], no. 27396/06, §§ 39-40, 29 June 2012). 131. The requirements contained in Article 35 § 1 as to the exhaustion of domestic remedies and the six-month period are closely interrelated, as they are not only combined in the same Article, but also expressed in a single sentence whose grammatical construction implies such a correlation. Thus, as a rule, the six-month period runs from the date of the final decision in the process of exhaustion of domestic remedies. Article 35 § 1 cannot be interpreted in a manner which would require an applicant to inform the Court of his complaint before his position in connection with the matter has been finally settled at the domestic level, otherwise the principle of subsidiarity would be breached. However, this provision allows only remedies which are normal and effective to be taken into account, as an applicant cannot extend the strict time-limit imposed under the Convention by seeking to make inappropriate or misconceived applications to bodies or institutions which have no power or competence to offer effective redress for the complaint in issue under the Convention (see, among many other authorities, Lekić v. Slovenia [GC], no. 36480/07, § 65, 11 December 2018). Thus, the pursuit of remedies which do not satisfy the requirements of Article 35 § 1 will not be considered by the Court for the purposes of establishing the date of the “final decision” or calculating the starting point for the running of the six ‑ month rule (see Jeronovičs v. Latvia [GC], no. 44898/10, § 75, 5 July 2016). 132. As a general rule, an application for the reopening of proceedings is not an effective remedy (see Berdzenishvili v. Russia (dec.), no. 31697/03, ECHR 2004-II; Tucka v. the United Kingdom (no. 1) (dec.), no. 34586/10, 18 January 2011; and Haász and Szabó v. Hungary, nos. 11327/14 and 11613/14, §§ 36-37, 13 October 2015), and, as such, does not interrupt the running of the six-month time-limit, except when it is the only judicial avenue available to the applicant in the circumstances of the case (see Ahtinen v. Finland (dec.), no. 48907/99, 31 May 2005, and Tomaszewscy v. Poland, no. 8933/05, §§ 117-19, 15 April 2014). 133. If the request for reopening of the proceedings is dismissed, the respective decision is not the “final decision” for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 and cannot be taken as the starting point of the six-month time-limit (see Sapeyan v. Armenia, no. 35738/03, § 23, 13 January 2009). If, however, proceedings are reopened or a final decision is eventually reviewed, the running of the six-month period in respect of the initial set of proceedings or the final decision will be interrupted, but only in relation to those Convention issues which served as a ground for such a review or reopening and were the subject of examination before the extraordinary appeal body (ibid., § 24). Finally, if an application for extraordinary review has not led to the reopening of the initial proceedings, but the domestic courts have nevertheless been provided with the opportunity of addressing the core of the human rights issues that the applicant subsequently brought before the Court and did address them, then the running of the six-month time-limit has to be considered to have restarted (see Schmidt v. Latvia, no. 22493/05, §§ 66-67 and 70-71, 27 April 2017). 134. Regarding the Constitutional Court of Latvia – and as the European Court of Human Rights has already established on several occasions – its jurisdiction is limited to reviewing the constitutionality of legal provisions and their compatibility with provisions of superior legal force. Accordingly, for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, applicants are required to avail themselves of this remedy only if they are challenging a provision of a statute or a regulation as being as such contrary to the national Constitution or the Convention; in other words, if the alleged violation stems from a legal norm itself. On the other hand, the procedure of an individual constitutional complaint is not an effective remedy where the applicant is complaining of an allegedly erroneous application or interpretation of a legal provision which, in its content, is not unconstitutional (see Elberte v. Latvia, no. 61243/08, §§ 79-80, 13 January 2015, with further references). In such cases a constitutional complaint does not interrupt the running of the six ‑ month time-limit. (ii) Application of these principles in the present case 135. In the present case, the Court notes that the initial calculation of each of the applicants’ pensions (except for the third applicant, as stated above) took place between 1999 and 2008, and that none of them appealed against the respective domestic decisions. On 18 February 2009 the Court delivered its judgment in the case of Andrejeva, cited above. On 14 August 2009 the applicants requested that their pensions be recalculated in the light of the Andrejeva judgment. These requests were refused. The applicants brought proceedings before the District Administrative Court, seeking the reopening of their proceedings on the basis of the Andrejeva judgment in accordance with domestic law. By final decisions of 20 November 2009, 27 November 2009, and 16 December 2009, the District Administrative Court dismissed the applicants’ complaints, declaring that the Andrejeva judgment did not warrant a reopening of their cases. On 5 March 2010 the applicants applied to the Constitutional Court, petitioning it to overrule and overturn its previous approach in relation to Paragraph 1 of the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act (defined in 2001), and to make a new judgment on the basis of the Grand Chamber judgment in Andrejeva. The Constitutional Court delivered a judgment on the merits of the applicants’ arguments (including the circumstances of each individual case) on 17 February 2011. 136. In the Court’s view, the applicants’ requests for reopening of the administrative proceedings before the District Administrative Court and the subsequent individual complaint before the Constitutional Court must be regarded as a single set of proceedings, ultimately aimed at obtaining the recalculation of their pensions following the Court’s judgment in the Andrejeva case. It is true that the applicants remained passive for a long time after the initial calculation of their pensions. However, the Court accepts that they could have believed, realistically and in good faith, that their legal situation had changed after the delivery of the Andrejeva judgment, which they considered as giving them a fresh opportunity to obtain a recalculation of their pensions – either immediately, or, if need be, after a formal invalidation of the impugned legal provision by the Constitutional Court. This was especially so because, unlike the Constitutional Court in its judgment of 17 February 2011, the Andrejeva judgment expressly refused to attribute a decisive role to the distinction between working in the territory of Latvia or outside it (ibid., § 85). What this Court considers decisive is the fact that the Constitutional Court did indeed consider the applicants’ constitutional complaints to be procedurally admissible under domestic law, agreed to examine them on the merits, and gave a meticulously reasoned judgment addressing the same human-rights issues that the applicants are now bringing before this Court (see, mutatis mutandis, Schmidt, cited above, §§ 68-71). 137. In consequence, in the particular circumstances of the present case, the Court considers that the judgment of the Constitutional Court of 17 February 2011 was indeed the “final decision” for the purposes of Article 35 § 1, and that the six-month time-limit has to be counted from the date of its delivery. The present application, lodged with the Court on 4 August 2011, has therefore been submitted within the six months following the latter date. For this reason, the respondent Government’s objection must be dismissed. Objections with respect to specific applicants (a) The second applicant (i) The parties’ arguments 138. The respondent Government argued that the second applicant’s reopening request, brought before the administrative courts, had only concerned the inclusion of the employment periods accrued in the territory of the former USSR but had not mentioned the periods of compulsory military service. Furthermore, the applicant had not submitted to the domestic authorities any documents allowing them to establish the country where that service had been carried out. Accordingly, in so far as it concerned the exclusion of the compulsory military service, the second applicant’s complaint should be rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies or as manifestly ill-founded. 139. The applicants responded that there were no effective domestic remedies with respect to the periods of compulsory military service. As Latvian citizens had only to prove the fact of service, they could obtain the inclusion of those periods by showing their employment record and their military identity card. Those documents indicated the territory from where the person had been conscripted but not the location where the compulsory military service had been served. In contrast, a “permanently resident non ‑ citizen” was required to prove the exact location of the military service. For that purpose, he was required to contact the archives of the respective foreign armed forces, for a fee, without necessarily having the corresponding linguistic abilities and with no certainty that such data were available. (ii) The Court’s assessment 140. The Court notes at the outset that the respondent Government themselves have asserted the ineffectiveness of the reopening requests brought by the applicants before the administrative courts for the purposes of Article 35 § 1 of the Convention (see paragraph 124 above). That being so, the Government’s assertion that the applicants should have raised a particular point of fact by way of that same procedure seems unsustainable. In any event, the Court reiterates that non-exhaustion of domestic remedies cannot be held against an applicant if, in spite of the latter’s alleged failure to observe the forms prescribed by law, the competent authority has nevertheless examined the substance of the exact claim that he or she is bringing before the Court (see Vladimir Romanov v. Russia, no. 41461/02, § 52, 24 July 2008, and Ulemek v. Croatia, no. 21613/16, § 77, 31 October 2019). In the present case, it appears that the Constitutional Court had declared the second applicant’s constitutional complaint procedurally admissible in its entirety and examined it with regard to all the disputed periods, without distinguishing between them (see paragraph 51 above). In these circumstances, the applicant cannot be blamed for not exhausting the domestic remedies, and the respondent Government’s objection must be dismissed. (b) The third applicant (i) The parties’ arguments 141. The respondent Government pointed out that the administrative proceedings which the third applicant had brought against the refusal to grant his early retirement claim, had been left without examination on procedural grounds. Additionally, when he had later been granted the retirement pension, which excluded the compulsory military service period, he had not appealed against that decision. He had also failed to institute constitutional proceedings in that regard, as his constitutional complaint had only addressed the refusal to grant him an early retirement pension. Furthermore, as pointed out by the Constitutional Court, following the entry in force of the Latvia-Russia Social Security Agreement the applicant could have requested a recalculation of his pension and the inclusion of the compulsory military service period carried out in Russia. However, unlike the other applicants, the third applicant failed to do so, thus failing to exhaust the domestic remedies. 142. The applicants reiterated their arguments concerning the procedural difficulties in identifying the country where compulsory military service had been carried out (see paragraph 139 above). They argued that the entry in force of the bilateral agreement had not fully eradicated the difference in treatment between citizens and “permanently resident non-citizens”; instead it had shifted this difference from the substantive law to the procedural law. While Latvian citizens were only required to submit a limited number of easily available documents, the “permanently resident non-citizens” were required to turn to the archives of foreign armed forces. The applicants submitted that there were several such archives in Russia, where the relevant information would need to be sought against a fee. Additionally, irreparable damage had been suffered prior to the entry into force of the relevant bilateral agreements, when the refusal to include those periods had been in accordance with domestic law and no domestic remedies had been available. (ii) The Court’s assessment 143. The Court points out that the third applicant’s complaint concerns both the refusal to grant him an early retirement pension and also the subsequent failure to include the period of compulsory military service in the calculation of his retirement pension. When this applicant lodged his constitutional complaint, he had not yet reached retirement age (see paragraphs 27 and 48 above). Thus, before the Constitutional Court, his complaint indeed concerned only the refusal to grant him the early retirement pension. However, the Court can only reiterate its well-established case-law according to which an applicant cannot be blamed for not exhausting a domestic remedy if, despite his or her alleged failure to observe the requirement set out by law, the competent authority has nevertheless examined the substance of the claim that he or she is raising before the Court (see paragraph 133 above). In the present case, the Constitutional Court did not regard the third applicant’s failure to pursue the administrative proceedings as an obstacle for the institution of proceedings, as the applicant had “substantiated that he could not protect his rights via the general remedies” (see paragraph 48 above). Therefore, with respect to this aspect of his complaint, the Court considers that the third applicant has to be deemed to have exhausted the domestic remedies. 144. The Court further notes that a retirement pension which excluded the compulsory military service period was granted to the third applicant during the constitutional proceedings. The case file contains no information as to whether any supplementary observations were put before the Constitutional Court to that effect. However, it is obvious that the Constitutional Court made no distinction between the question of granting the early retirement pension to the third applicant and the refusal to include certain periods in the calculations in respect of the retirement pension of the other applicants. Instead, it analysed the constitutionality of the legal provision, which provides that with respect to “permanently resident non-citizens” certain employment and equivalent periods are not included in the calculation of their “insurance period” as defined by Latvian law. Thus, on its substance, the judgment of the Constitutional Court covered both aspects of the third applicant’s complaint. Furthermore, after the delivery of the Constitutional Court’s judgment, this remedy was no longer available to the applicant, as this claim had already been adjudicated. 145. In these circumstances, the Court concludes that the third applicant cannot be blamed for not exhausting the domestic remedies, as required by Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. It therefore dismisses the respondent Government’s objection on this point. (c) The fourth applicant (i) The parties’ arguments 146. The respondent Government argued that with respect to the fourth applicant’s employment period in Belarus, a retirement pension had been granted by Belarus prior to the lodging of the present application. Additionally, also prior to the lodging of the present application, the fourth applicant’s pension had been recalculated on the basis of the Latvia-Russia Social Security Agreement, in order to include the employment periods accrued in the territory of Russia. As the fourth applicant had withheld this information from the Court, she had manifestly abused the right of individual application within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. She could also no longer claim to be a victim with respect to those periods. 147. Concerning the alleged employment periods in Germany and the period spent on maternity leave, the respondent Government argued that the fourth applicant had not raised these complaints at domestic level and that they should be rejected for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies. 148. The applicants responded that the information referred to by the Government had been included in the application form. They also argued that the fourth applicant should be considered a victim with respect to the periods included in the calculation on the same grounds as with respect to the first applicant. Furthermore, the fourth applicant’s claim did not cover the employment period in Germany since, at the time of her retirement and as was true also in respect of citizens of Latvia, only the periods accrued in the territory of the former USSR had been taken into account. For the same reasons, no complaint had been brought concerning the period of the voluntary military service. With regard to the periods spent on parental leave, the applicants argued that these periods formed part of the employment periods and were not the subject matter of a separate dispute. (ii) The Court’s assessment 149. The Court reiterates that under Article 35 § 3 (a) an application may be rejected as an abuse of the right of individual application if, among other reasons, it is knowingly based on untrue facts. The submission of incomplete and thus misleading information may also amount to an abuse of the right of application, especially if the information concerns the very core of the case and no sufficient explanation has been provided for the failure to disclose that information. The same applies if important new developments have occurred during the proceedings before the Court and where, despite being expressly required to do so by Rule 47 § 7 of the Rules of Court, the applicant has failed to disclose that information to the Court, thereby preventing it from ruling on the case in full knowledge of the facts. However, even in such cases, the applicant’s intention to mislead the Court must always be established with sufficient certainty (see Gross v. Switzerland [GC], no. 67810/10, § 28, ECHR 2014, with further references). 150. The Court notes at the outset that, contrary to the respondent Government’s allegation, the information about the recalculation of the fourth applicant’s pension on the basis of the Latvia-Russia Social Security Agreement was indeed included in the initial application form. The applicants also stated in the form that the fourth of their number had requested a Belarussian pension but had not yet received a reply, and the respondent Government have provided no documentary evidence establishing that this claim was inaccurate. 151. The Court also rejects the Government’s argument that the fourth applicant has lost her “victim” status. A decision or measure favourable to the applicant is not, in principle, sufficient to deprive him or her of his or her status as a “victim” for the purposes of Article 34 of the Convention unless the national authorities have acknowledged, either expressly or in substance, and then afforded redress for the breach of the Convention (see J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 64, with further references). This has clearly not been done in the present case. The Court considers that the respondent Government’s argument concerning the alleged absence of victim status rather pertains to the merits of the case and falls to be examined under that head. The allegations of “abuse” and “loss of victim status” must therefore be dismissed. 152. As to the question of the inclusion of parental leave in the calculation of the “insurance period”, the Court once again reiterates the principle that an applicant cannot be blamed for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies if the substance of the claims raised in Strasbourg has been previously examined, in spite of any alleged procedural shortcomings (see paragraph 133 above). In the present case, the entire length of the disputed period was covered by the reasoning of the Constitutional Court’s judgment (see paragraph 51 above); it follows that this objection should also be dismissed. (d) The fifth applicant (i) The parties’ arguments 153. The respondent Government submitted that the fifth applicant’s pension had been recalculated on the basis of the Latvia-Russia Social Security Agreement prior to the lodging the present application, a fact of which she had not informed the Court. Hence, her claim ought to be dismissed for abuse of the right of individual application and loss of victim status. 154. The applicants reiterated that the information concerning the recalculation had been included in the application form and that the fifth applicant should still be regarded as having victim status on the grounds set out above. (ii) The Court’s assessment 155. On the basis of the case file before it, the Court comes to the same conclusions as for the fourth applicant: there is no indication of “abuse”, given that the information about the recalculation of the pension was indeed included in the fifth applicant’s initial application form, and the argument regarding victim status is to be considered as related to the merits of the case (see paragraphs 149-151 above). These objections must consequently also be dismissed. Conclusion on the admissibility of the application 156. The Court notes that the applicants’ complaint under Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. It further notes that it is not inadmissible on any other grounds. The application must therefore be declared admissible. MeritsThe parties’ arguments The parties’ arguments The parties’ arguments (a) The applicants 157. The applicants declared that their complaint concerned solely their claim for the inclusion in the calculation of their retirement pensions of those same periods which were included in calculating the equivalent pensions for Latvian citizens; thus, they were not claiming any additional benefits. The failure to include the impugned employment and equivalent periods in the calculation had led to a reduction of the applicants’ overall insurance period and had directly affected the amount of their retirement pensions. It had also barred four of the five applicants from retiring early and had prevented them from benefitting from favourable conditions in determining the initial capital sum that was used to calculate their pensions. As a result, the first, fourth and fifth applicants had received the minimum pension. 158. The applicants reiterated that, had they been Latvian citizens, the respective employment and equivalent periods accrued in the territory of the former USSR would have been taken into account in calculating the “insurance period” which was subsequently used to determine their entitlement to state pensions and the amount thereof. Thus, the impugned difference in treatment had been based solely on nationality. 159. With respect to the legitimate aim of the difference in question, the applicants conceded that it pursued the aim of protecting the country’s economic system. However, they doubted whether this aim still retained its full importance today. Regarding the proportionality of the difference in treatment, the applicants pointed out that the special status of “permanently resident non-citizens” was in substance similar to Latvian citizenship, as it established a special legal bond between the State and the individual. Furthermore, Latvia was the only State with which the applicants had stable legal ties and thus the only State which, objectively, could assume responsibility for them in terms of social security. All of them had lived most of their lives in Latvia; the third applicant had lived there since the age of three. Accordingly, the applicants considered that, irrespective of any circumstantial differences, the facts of the present case could not reasonably be distinguished from those of the above-cited Andrejeva case. In particular, they did not agree that Ms Andrejeva had had a closer legal tie with Latvia than they or any other “permanently resident non-citizens” did. In any event, the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” had been the only aspect invoked by the Court in its finding of a violation in the Andrejeva case. 160. The applicants admitted that, unlike Ms Andrejeva, they had actually lived outside the territory of Latvia during the periods not included in the calculation. However, they referred to paragraph 85 of the Andrejeva judgment, where the aspect of residence had been considered irrelevant. Furthermore, while before the Court the Government tried to distinguish the two cases on the basis of residence, such a distinction had not been made under domestic law. Even now only work carried out for local Latvian enterprises was regarded as “employment in Latvia”. 161. The applicants also submitted that their situation with respect to bilateral agreements was very similar to that of Ms Andrejeva. The Agreement between the Republic of Latvia and Ukraine regarding Cooperation within the Field of Social Security had taken effect prior to Ms Andrejeva bringing her case before the Court, and her pension had been recalculated ex nunc; on the other hand, the agreement with Russia had not entered into force before her death. In Andrejeva, the Government’s objection concerning victim status had been raised belatedly; however, the Court had expressed its position concerning the bilateral agreements by stating that a Contracting State could not be absolved of its responsibility under the Convention on the ground that it was not bound by some type of inter-State treaties (ibid., § 90). 162. In particular, two bilateral agreements (with Belarus and Russia) had entered into force over the course of the domestic proceedings and prior to the present case being brought. Recalculations had been made for certain of the applicants; however, they had only been made ex nunc, as none of the agreements allowed for retrospective payments. Furthermore, employment periods and equivalent periods accrued in other territories of the former Soviet Union remained excluded from the calculation. According to the applicants, the partial inclusion of certain periods in the calculation of their retirement pensions could only have relevance for the calculation of the just satisfaction award under Article 41 of the Convention. 163. The applicants also dismissed the respondent Government’s claim that finding a violation would render the bilateral agreements on social security devoid of purpose. That would only be the case if the aim of those agreements had been to improve the situation of “permanently resident non ‑ citizens” only; however, their scope was much broader. In practice, those agreements did improve the situation of some “permanently resident non ‑ citizens”, to a certain extent; however, such improvements were merely collateral and could not be considered an effective means of eradicating the violation of the Convention caused by the domestic legislation. 164. While the judgment in the above-cited Andrejeva case had concerned only the employment periods accrued outside the territory of Latvia, the applicants argued that the same principles also applied with regard to equivalent periods. This was especially true in respect of compulsory military service, as conscripts had been unable to choose the location of the compulsory military service and were compelled to go where they were sent. There had been no local or ethnic units in the Soviet army at the relevant time. The applicants emphasised that the third applicant had been conscripted from the territory of Latvia where he had lived since the age of three. 165. Finally, the applicants also referred to the findings of the ECRI and the Advisory Committee on the FCNM (see paragraphs 87-89 above) regarding the implementation of the Andrejeva judgment by the Latvian authorities. 166. In summary, the applicants argued that any purported factual differences between their case and that of the applicant in the Andrejeva case was not a reason for the Court to reach a different conclusion. Accordingly, there had been a violation of Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. (b) The respondent Government 167. The respondent Government declared at the outset that the present case did not concern a refusal to grant the applicants a retirement pension or any other social benefit. Just like Latvian citizens, the applicants were receiving the retirement pension provided by law and were entitled to apply for other social services and assistance. Rather, the applicants claimed that the employment periods accrued outside the territory of Latvia during their residence in other parts of the former USSR prior to the restoration of Latvia’s independence should be taken into account in calculating their pension. In this regard, the respondent Government emphasised that benefits paid on account of employment or military service performed outside Latvia were to be considered as supplements for additional pension payments, and not the core of the old-age pension itself. They reiterated that, when old-age pensions were calculated for employment periods after 1 January 1991, those pensions were calculated in the same manner for both citizens and non-citizens; however, the same approach could not be applied to periods when Latvia was unlawfully occupied by the Soviet Union. 168. The respondent Government once again referred to the doctrine of State continuity, according to which the forcible incorporation of Latvia into the Soviet Union had been contrary to international law and therefore null and void; consequently, Latvia had continued to exist de jure throughout the entire Cold War period; Latvia was not a successor State to the former USSR and could not assume any of its obligations (see paragraphs 98-99 above). 169. According to the respondent Government, upon the restoration of its independence, Latvia had an obligation under international law to assume responsibility only for its own citizens and its own territory. In the light of the erga omnes obligation not to recognise or justify violations of international law, Latvia, as a State that had been illegally occupied as a result of aggression, could not assume responsibility for individuals who entered its territory as a result of the immigration policies imposed by the occupying power. In other words, had Latvia accepted that it had such an obligation under international law, it would have been acting against the prohibition on recognising and justifying the violations of international law committed by the USSR. The respondent Government admitted that the impugned decision by the Latvian legislature had also been guided by the necessity to protect the economic system of the country by avoiding a substantive financial burden. However, considerations of State identity and State continuity as described above had been more important than economic considerations. 170. The respondent Government explained that, after the restoration of its independence, Latvia had created a pension system based on the principle of individual contributions. However, since no pension funds existed at that moment, Latvia voluntarily decided to guarantee a minimum pension to all residents of Latvia, irrespective of their citizenship. Generally speaking, it could hardly be suggested that Latvia ought to have taken responsibility for the full pension entitlements of any person resident on its territory before 1991; instead the obligation to pay pensions for work periods accrued during the occupation fell to the State which had exercised jurisdiction and effective control during the disputed years. Nevertheless, Latvia decided to grant full pension advantages, based on two criteria: first, the beneficiaries’ citizenship, and second, the principle of territoriality. Thus, full pension benefits were awarded, firstly, to all citizens of Latvia, regardless of where in the former USSR they had been employed and had resided, and secondly, to all other persons (“permanently resident non-citizens”, stateless persons, and foreign nationals) to the extent that they had worked in the Latvian territory. This solution was entirely reasonable. On the one hand, Latvia could legitimately assume additional responsibilities with regard to its own citizens, given their special relationship with the State. On the other hand, those non-citizens who had worked in the Latvian territory during the Soviet regime did contribute to the development of Latvia’s economy. 171. The respondent Government considered that the applicants were not in a similar or relevantly comparable situation to that of Latvian citizens. They explained the historical context of the creation of the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” of Latvia. During the Soviet occupation, an extensive influx of civilian workforce and military personnel was artificially organised into the territory of Latvia as a part of a general Sovietisation and Russification policy, resulting in a large-scale transfer of population from the Soviet Union to Latvia. This policy had dramatically altered the ethnic and linguistic composition of society. Referring to the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (advisory opinion of 7 July 2004, ICJ Reports 2004), the respondent Government emphasised that such population transfers were prohibited under international law. 172. After 1991, according to the doctrine of State continuity, Latvian citizenship was not granted anew, but only restored to those individuals who had held it prior to the occupation, and to their descendants. As a result, a large number of persons present in Latvia were not automatically granted citizenship. For humanitarian reasons, in order to protect them from becoming stateless persons, Latvia created the status of “permanently resident non-citizens”. The respondent Government emphasised that the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” had been intended as a temporary status, and that its holders were expected to eventually obtain either Latvian citizenship or that of another State. In that respect, the respondent Government further explained that after 1994, when the Citizenship Act was adopted, “permanently resident non-citizens” became eligible to acquire Latvian citizenship by way of naturalisation. The requirements for naturalisation included knowledge of the Latvian language, of the basic principles of the Latvian Constitution and of the national anthem, and the basic facts of Latvia’s history and culture, and swearing an oath of loyalty to the Republic of Latvia. The applicants could have applied to acquire Latvian citizenship, but had never attempted to do so, and had provided no explanation for their decision. The respondent Government explained that if the applicants were to become Latvian citizens, their pensions would be recalculated to include the periods of employment and mandatory military service in the former USSR outside Latvia. However, they had freely decided not to avail themselves of this opportunity, and the fifth applicant had opted for the nationality of the Russian Federation. 173. The respondent Government recognised that in the Andrejeva case the Court had found a violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken together with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. However, in the light of the foregoing, they considered that this finding had to be understood as based on the decisive fact that, during all the disputed periods, the applicant in that case had resided and worked in the territory of Latvia, forming legal and factual ties with Latvia only. In the present case, however, during the disputed years the applicants had worked or performed their mandatory military service in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, or Azerbaijan, creating no ties with Latvia in respect of these periods. Thus, while the applicant in the Andrejeva case had worked in the territory of Latvia, the applicants in the present case had not. They had not only been physically employed in the territory of another republic of the former USSR, but their residence had also been officially registered there. Moreover, the central issue in the Andrejeva case was the definition of the concept of “employment in Latvia”, which was not at stake here. In the present case, there was no dispute concerning the fact that the applicants had not lived and resided in Latvia during the years in question. Therefore, unlike in Andrejeva, they could not have had any legitimate expectations that they would receive a pension for the contested periods of employment. The respondent Government concluded that the applicants were in a substantially different situation from that of the applicant in the Andrejeva case. 174. The respondent Government also recognised that, according to the Court’s case-law, the relevant test for the application of Article 14 of the Convention was whether, but for the condition of entitlement about which they complained, the applicants would have had a right to receive the benefit in question. However, while in most cases this test would be sufficient, it could not be automatically applied in the present case without taking into account the specific historical background as set out above. To assert otherwise would mean completely disregarding the violations of international law that were committed during and following the occupation of Latvia. 175. Furthermore, contrary to the circumstances in Andrejeva, when the present application was lodged the bilateral social-security agreements with Belarus and Russia had already entered in force and the applicants’ retirement pensions had been recalculated accordingly. According to the respondent Government, the circumstances in the present case were rather similar to those of Carson and Others and Tarkoev and Others (both cited above). The international bilateral agreements on social security entered into by Latvia were based on a mutual understanding of fundamental principles and were the result of continued negotiations between the parties involved, in the course of which the States had sought to identify comparable groups to which the agreements should apply equally. To concur with the applicants’ position, challenging the role of the social-security agreements, would not only disregard the freedom of States to conclude bilateral agreements on social issues, but would also render all such agreements meaningless. The respondent Government asked whether two States ought ever to conclude bilateral agreements on social security if their nationals could enjoy all the available social benefits on the basis of Article 14 of the Convention without having to reciprocate. 176. To sum up, the respondent Government concluded that the impugned difference in treatment was directly based on the doctrine of State continuity and, by extension, had its roots in general public international law. It had therefore at least two legitimate aims: protection of Latvia’s economic system following the restoration of its independence, and respect for the principle of State continuity and constitutional identity. The impugned measure was also proportionate to these aims: all residents of Latvia received basic old-age pensions, irrespective of their citizenship; their pensions were periodically indexed, the applicants received additional social benefits for housing, health care and transportation, and their pensions had been recalculated following the entry into force of several bilateral agreements on social-security matters. There was indeed no other less restrictive measures to achieve the same legitimate aim. Accordingly, when adopting the domestic-law provision relevant in the present case, Latvia had acted within its margin of appreciation which, in the circumstances of the present case, was wide. The respondent Government therefore concluded that there had been no violation of Article 14 of the Convention read in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. Submissions of the third-party intervener 177. The Russian Government considered that the very existence of the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” fell foul of the basic standards of the Convention, the bearers of this status being systematically discriminated against in many areas, including that of social and economic rights. 178. The Russian Government further explained that the USSR had been a unified formation. Soviet citizens had been entitled to travel all over the territory of the USSR, often not by their own choice but as a result of compulsory job placement by the State authorities. Taking into account the State-guaranteed pension support that had existed in the USSR for many years, they had had a reasonable expectation that their labour records would be valid throughout the entire territory of their country, that is, the Soviet Union. In these circumstances, the difference in the amount of pension paid to citizens and to non-citizens was obviously unfair and discriminatory. 179. According to the Russian Government, the present case was substantially similar to Andrejeva, cited above, and ought to be determined in the same manner. As to the bilateral agreements on social matters concluded by Latvia with some former republics of the USSR, the Russian Government considered that these were not an adequate solution to the problem in issue, since none of these agreements allowed for a retrospective payment of pensions. Moreover, such agreements had been concluded by Latvia with only five out of the fourteen other former Soviet republics, and “permanently resident non-citizens” who had worked in other parts of the former Soviet Union could not have the amounts of their pensions recalculated accordingly. In this connection, the Russian Government specifically referred to the opinions of the ECRI and the Advisory Committee on the FCNM (see paragraphs 87-89 above). The Court’s assessment (a) General principles 180. The Court reiterates at the outset that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 does not guarantee as such any right to a pension of a particular amount, any right to a pension in respect of activities carried out in a State other than the respondent State, and, indeed, any right to a pension at all. If, however, a State does decide to create a pension scheme, it must do so in a manner which is compatible with Article 14 of the Convention (see Stec and Others v. the United Kingdom [GC], nos. 65731/01 and 65900/01, § 53, ECHR 2006-VI, and Andrejeva, cited above, § 77). 181. In the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Convention, Article 14 affords protection against different treatment, without an objective and reasonable justification, of persons in relevantly similar situations (see, among many other authorities, Burden v. the United Kingdom [GC], no. 13378/05, § 60, ECHR 2008). However, only differences in treatment based on an identifiable characteristic, or “status”, are capable of amounting to discrimination within the meaning of Article 14 (see Carson and Others, cited above, § 61; Fábián, cited above, § 113, and Molla Sali, cited above, § 134). Furthermore, not every difference in treatment will amount to a violation of Article 14. A difference of treatment based on a prohibited ground is discriminatory if it has no objective and reasonable justification; in other words, if it does not pursue a legitimate aim or if there is not a reasonable relationship of proportionality between the means employed and the aim sought to be realised (see Andrejeva, cited above, § 81; Fabris v. France [GC], no. 16574/08, § 56, ECHR 2013; Fábián, cited above, § 113; and Molla Sali, cited above, § 135). 182. The Court also reiterates that the provisions of the Convention do not prevent Contracting States from introducing general policy schemes by way of legislative measures whereby a certain category or group of individuals is treated differently from others, provided that the interference with the rights of the statutory category or group as a whole can be justified under the Convention (see Andrejeva, cited above, § 83, and Ždanoka, cited above, § 112). Indeed, measures of economic and social policy often involve the introduction and application of criteria which are based on making distinctions between categories or groups of individuals (see J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 81). Moreover, Article 14 does not prohibit Contracting Parties from treating groups differently in order to correct “factual inequalities” between them (see Guberina v. Croatia, no. 23682/13, § 70, ECHR 2016, with further references). 183. The Contracting States enjoy a certain margin of appreciation in assessing whether and to what extent differences in otherwise similar situations justify a different treatment. The scope of the margin of appreciation will vary according to the circumstances, the subject matter and the background (see Stummer, cited above, § 88). First and foremost, the nature of the status upon which differential treatment is based weighs heavily in determining the scope of that margin (see Bah v. the United Kingdom, no. 56328/07, § 47, ECHR 2011). The margin is very narrow if the distinction is based on an inherent or immutable personal characteristic such as race or sex (see, for example, D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic [GC], no. 57325/00 § 196, ECHR 2007 ‑ IV, and J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 89). The Court has applied the same standard to the criterion of nationality, holding that very weighty reasons would have to be put forward before the Court could regard a difference in treatment based exclusively on the grounds of nationality as compatible with the Convention (see Gaygusuz, § 42; Andrejeva, § 87; and Ribać, § 53, all cited above). Conversely, the margin of appreciation will be considerably wider, and the justification required will not be as weighty, if the status in question is subject to an element of personal choice, such as immigration status (see Bah, cited above, ibid., and, mutatis mutandis, Makarčeva v. Lithuania (dec.), no. 31838/19, § 68, 28 September 2021). 184. Secondly, in the context of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, the Court has held that in matters concerning general measures of economic or social strategy the States usually enjoy a wide margin of appreciation under the Convention (see Andrejeva, § 83; Fábián, § 115; Guberina, § 73; and British Gurkha Welfare Society and Others, § 62, all cited above). Because of their direct knowledge of their society and its needs, the national authorities are in principle better placed than the international judge to appreciate what is in the public interest on social or economic grounds, and the Court will generally respect the legislature’s policy choice unless it is “manifestly without reasonable foundation” (see Andrejeva, § 83; Carson and Others, § 61; and Fábián, § 115, all cited above). 185. On the other hand, as the Court has stressed in the context of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, although the margin of appreciation in the context of general measures of economic or social policy is, in principle, wide, such measures must nevertheless be implemented in a manner that does not violate the prohibition of discrimination as set out in the Convention and complies with the requirement of proportionality (see Fábián, cited above, § 115, with further references). Among other areas, this general rule applies in pension matters (see Stec and Others, cited above, § 55, and Jurčić v. Croatia, no. 54711/15, § 64, 4 February 2021). Hence, in that context the Court has usually limited its acceptance to respect the legislature’s policy choice as not “manifestly without reasonable foundation” to circumstances where an alleged difference in treatment resulted from a transitional measure forming part of a scheme carried out in order to correct an inequality (see Stec and Others, §§ 61-66; British Gurkha Welfare Society and Others, § 81; and J.D. and A. v. the United Kingdom, § 88, all cited above). 186. Irrespective of the scope of the State’s margin of appreciation, the final decision as to the observance of the Convention’s requirements rests with the Court (see, among many other authorities, Konstantin Markin v. Russia [GC], no. 30078/06, § 126, ECHR 2012). 187. Lastly, as regards the burden of proof in relation to Article 14 of the Convention, the Court has held that once the applicant has shown a difference in treatment between persons in relevantly similar situations, it is for the Government to show that it was justified (see D.H. and Others v. the Czech Republic [GC], cited above, § 177; Kurić and Others v. Slovenia [GC], no. 26828/06, § 389, ECHR 2012 (extracts); and Guberina, cited above, § 74). 188. In the context of complaints of alleged discrimination in a welfare or pensions system, the Court has held that its main task is to assess the compatibility of the impugned features of the system with Article 14, not the individual facts or circumstances of the particular applicants or of others who are or might be affected by the legislation (see, for example, Carson and Others, § 62; Stec and Others, §§ 50-67; Burden, §§ 58-66; and Andrejeva, §§ 74-92, all cited above). Rather, the Court’s role is to determine the question of principle, namely whether the legislation as such unlawfully discriminates between persons who are in an analogous situation ( Carson and Others, § 62, and British Gurkha Welfare Society and Others, § 63, both cited above). (b) Application to the present case 189. The Court has already found that the facts of the case fall within the ambit of the substantive article – here, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 – and that Article 14 of the Convention is therefore applicable to the applicants’ complaint (see paragraphs 121-122 above). It remains for the Court to determine, firstly, whether the impugned difference in treatment is based on at least one of the protected grounds set out in Article 14 of the Convention; secondly, whether the applicants are in a relevantly similar situation to that of the respective comparator group, i.e., Latvian citizens; thirdly, whether that difference pursued a legitimate aim; and, fourthly, whether it was proportionate to that aim, satisfying the requirement of a “reasonable and objective justification” for that difference in treatment (see, mutatis mutandis, Vrountou v. Cyprus, no. 33631/06, § 61, 13 October 2015). 190. As regards the applicants’ factual situation, their circumstances can be summarised as follows. All the applicants, with the exception of the third applicant who moved to Latvia when he was three, moved to Latvia and settled there in the course of their adult lives. In the absence of a relevant bilateral agreement, the impact on the second applicant of excluding the entire period of his employment in Azerbaijan, where he worked before settling in Latvia, has not been mitigated by any subsequent measure. The same is true for the period of his military service prior to his settlement in Latvia (see paragraphs 21-24 above). The fourth applicant, who retired in 2008, subsequently benefitted from the recalculation of her retirement pension following the conclusion of the bilateral agreement with Russia, whereby her periods of employment in Russia were taken into account with effect from June 2011. As a result, the remaining impact of the difference concerns the amount of the retirement pension she received during the period of about 3 years and 3 months between the start of her retirement in 2008 and the recalculation in 2011, and the amount relating to the employment period in her native Uzbekistan (about eight years), which remains excluded (see paragraphs 29-33 above). The fifth applicant, who started receiving her retirement pension in 2005, also benefitted from the recalculation in 2011 as far as her employment periods in Russia were concerned. As a result, the remaining impact of the difference concerns the amount of the retirement pension she received during the period of about seven years between the start of her retirement in 2005 and the recalculation in 2011, and the amount relating to the employment periods in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan (about eight years), which remain excluded (see paragraphs 34-37 above). Finally, the third applicant has spent practically all his life in Latvia, interrupting his residence there for the duration of his compulsory military service (about two years) outside Latvia (see paragraphs 25-28 above). (i) The alleged ground of discrimination 191. In the Andrejeva judgment, cited above, the Court held: “87. ... The Court notes ... that as a ‘permanently resident non-citizen’, the applicant is lawfully resident in Latvia on a permanent basis and that she receives a retirement pension in respect of her employment ‘in Latvia’, that is, for entities based in Latvian territory. The national authorities’ refusal to take into account her years of employment ‘outside Latvia’ is based exclusively on the consideration that she does not have Latvian citizenship. It was not disputed in the instant case that a Latvian citizen in the same position as the applicant, having worked in the same enterprise during the same period, would be granted the disputed portion of the retirement pension. Moreover, the parties agreed that if the applicant became a naturalised Latvian citizen she would automatically receive the pension in respect of her entire working life. Nationality is therefore the sole criterion for the distinction complained of ...” 192. In the present case, the Court sees no reason to depart from this conclusion. It appears that in the Latvian legal system the terms “nationality” and “citizenship” have the same meaning (for an example of interchangeable use of both terms, see Kurić and Others, cited above). It was clearly stated in Paragraph 1 of the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act that the impugned difference in treatment is between Latvian citizens and other categories of people – that is, foreign nationals, stateless persons and “permanently resident non-citizens” of Latvia (see paragraph 66 above). Both the Constitutional Court in its judgment of 17 February 2011 and the Latvian Government in its observations before the Court have, in substance, recognised this, justifying the difference in question by the idea that the State has to assume particular responsibility for its own citizens. Moreover, as the respondent Government have pointed out, if the applicants had become Latvian citizens by way of naturalisation, their pensions would be recalculated to include the periods of employment and mandatory military service outside Latvia, and the amount of their pensions would become – albeit only ex nunc – identical to the amount that Latvian citizens with the same employment history would receive (see paragraph 172 above). 193. This being so, the Court cannot but reaffirm its earlier conclusion, reached in the Andrejeva case, namely that “nationality”, or rather the absence of Latvian citizenship on the applicants’ part, is the sole criterion for the distinction complained of (see Gaygusuz, cited above, §§ 40 and 47; Koua Poirrez v. France (no. 40892/98, §§ 41 and 47, ECHR 2003 ‑ X); and, mutatis mutandis, Rangelov v. Germany, no. 5123/07, § 99, 22 March 2012). Accordingly, very weighty reasons must be adduced to justify a difference in treatment in such cases. Nonetheless, the specific circumstances of the case are to be taken into account in determining the scope of the respondent State’s margin of appreciation. (ii) Whether the applicants are in a relevantly similar situation to that of Latvian citizens 194. According to the respondent Government, for the purposes of the present case, the applicants are not in a relevantly similar or comparable situation to that of Latvian citizens: the latter are in a special relationship of loyalty, allegeance and mutual obligations with the Latvian State, which, accordingly, has a special responsibility with regard to them, whereas the former group, transferred to Latvia as a result of demographic policies imposed by an occupying power in violation of international law, do not possess such special ties. From this perspective, if the Latvian legislature has decided to grant them pensions on the account of their employment during the Soviet regime in the Latvian territory, this was a reasonable bonus based on the fact that, to the extent that they had worked in Latvia, they had also contributed to that country’s economic development (see paragraphs 170-171 above). On the other hand, the applicants’ position can be understood as emphasising the identical factual nature of their position and that of a Latvian citizen with a similar employment history; in other words, having or not having Latvian nationality is the only objective difference between them (see paragraph 159 above). Like the applicants, the third-party intervener emphasised the equal status of all former Soviet citizens with regard to labour and pension benefits during the Soviet period (see paragraph 178 above). 195. The Court finds it sufficient at this stage of its examination to note that, with regard to the calculation of their retirement pensions within the Latvian system of occupational pensions, the applicants can be considered to be in a relevantly similar situation to persons with the same employment history but possessing Latvian citizenship. Accordingly, the Court will proceed with an assessment of whether the difference in treatment pursued one or more legitimate aims and whether it was proportional in the light of those aims. (iii) The legitimacy of the aims pursued 196. Drawing on the Constitutional Court’s judgment of 17 February 2011, the respondent Government stated that the difference in treatment established by Paragraph 1 of the transitional provisions of the State Pensions Act, instituting the impugned difference in treatment between Latvian citizens and other categories of persons, pursued not one but two aims: namely, protecting the economic system of the country, and safeguarding the constitutional identity of the State by implementing the doctrine of State continuity, the latter aim being more important than the former. 197. In the Andrejeva case, cited above, the Court held: “86. The Court accepts that the difference in treatment complained of pursues at least one legitimate aim that is broadly compatible with the general objectives of the Convention, namely the protection of the country’s economic system. It is undisputed that after the restoration of Latvia’s independence and the subsequent break-up of the USSR, the Latvian authorities were confronted with an abundance of problems linked to both the need to set up a viable social security system and the reduced capacity of the national budget. Furthermore, the fact that the provision in issue was not introduced until 1995, four years after Latvia’s independence had been fully restored, is not decisive in the instant case. It is not surprising that a newly established democratic legislature should need time for reflection in a period of political turmoil to enable it to consider what measures were required to ensure the country’s economic well-being. It cannot therefore be concluded that the fact that Latvia did not introduce the difference in treatment until 1995 showed that the State itself did not deem such a measure necessary to protect the national economy (see, mutatis mutandis, Ždanoka, cited above, § 131).” 198. The Court notes that the Constitutional Court gave its second judgment regarding pension rights in 2011, that is, after the delivery of the Court’s judgment in Andrejeva, which was taken into account and analysed by the Constitutional Court. According to the Constitutional Court’s reasoning, the impugned difference in treatment has at least two legitimate aims. The first, and most important according to the domestic authorities, was the need to protect the constitutional identity of the Republic of Latvia, which is based on the principle of State continuity as set out in the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence and subsequent constitutional provisions and doctrine. The Court observes that the essential point in this regard is not the doctrine of State continuity per se but rather the constitutional foundation of the Republic of Latvia following the restoration of its independence. The underlying arguments for Latvia’s doctrine of State continuity stem from the overall historical and demographic background which, as argued by the Government, accordingly also informed the setting up of the impugned system of retirement pensions following the restoration of Latvia’s independence. More specifically, the Court acknowledges that the aim in that context was to avoid retrospective approbation of the consequences of the immigration policy practised in the period of unlawful occupation and annexation of the country. In this specific historical context, such an aim, as pursued by the Latvian legislature when establishing the system of retirement pensions, was consistent with the efforts to rebuild the nation’s life following the restoration of independence, and the Court accepts this aim as legitimate. The second legitimate aim, as the Court established in the Andrejeva case, was the protection of the country’s economic system (ibid., § 86). 199. It therefore remains to be determined whether there was a reasonable relationship of proportionality between these aims and the means employed by the Latvian authorities. (iv) The proportionality of the difference in treatment (α) Preliminary considerations 200. The Court reiterates at the outset that it has in the past examined several cases concerning the obligations of the successor States to the former Yugoslavia as regards individual patrimonial rights and interests after the disintegration of that State (see, for example, Kurić and Others, cited above, and Kovačić and Others v. Slovenia ([GC], nos. 44574/98 and 2 others, 3 October 2008). However, it considers that the rules and principles of international law concerning State succession in pension matters are of little or no use for the purposes of the present case, as the official and consistent legal position of Latvia is based on the doctrine of State continuity, in the sense of a firm and coherent denial of any link of State succession between the former Soviet Union and the Latvian State. 201. The Court also reiterates that there is no right under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 taken alone to receive a social security benefit or pension payment of any kind or amount, unless national law provides for such an entitlement (see, for example, Damjanac v. Croatia, no. 52943/10, § 87, 24 October 2013). Furthermore, given that the Latvian legislature has decided to grant occupational retirement pensions for the work performed during the historical period in question, the Court perceives no reasonable objection, from the point of view of Convention law, to a policy generally excluding periods of employment accrued while individuals were residing and working outside the Latvian territory. The core issue in the present case, however, is not whether the legitimate aims pursued by Latvia can justify not granting pensions at all, or granting them for the periods of work done in Latvia only, but whether they can justify the difference made in this regard between those holding Latvian citizenship and those holding the status of “permanently resident non-citizens”, and whether there is sufficient justification for this difference in treatment in the light of all the circumstances of the case. 202. The Court further notes that in the case of Andrejeva, cited above, it found a violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. While mindful of the broad margin of appreciation enjoyed by the respondent State in the field of social security, the Court was not convinced that there had been a reasonable relationship of proportionality with respect to the legitimate aim of protecting the country’s economic system (ibid, § 89). In this regard, the Court reiterates that, while it is not formally bound to follow its previous judgments, it is in the interests of legal certainty, foreseeability and equality before the law that it should not depart, without good reason, from precedents laid down in previous cases (see Martinie v. France [GC], no. 58675/00, § 54, ECHR 2006-VI, and Magyar Helsinki Bizottság v. Hungary [GC], no. 18030/11, § 150, 8 November 2016). The Court must therefore determine whether there are any such reasons in the instant case, especially in the light of the expanded reasoning adduced by the Constitutional Court in its judgment of 17 February 2011. 203. The Court agrees with the Constitutional Court that upon the restoration of its independence Latvia was not obliged to assume the responsibilities of the USSR. Having undergone unlawful occupation and subsequent annexation, a State is not required to assume the public-law obligations accrued by the illegally established public authorities of the occupying or annexing power. Latvia was neither automatically bound by such obligations based on the Soviet period nor obliged to undertake obligations emanating from obligations of the occupying or annexing State. The Court observes, however, that once Latvia had put in place a system of occupational retirement pensions in 1996 which allowed for periods of employment accrued outside its territory to be counted towards the pension for Latvian nationals, it was bound, as from the date on which the Convention entered into force in respect of Latvia (that is, 27 June 1997), to comply with Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. (β) Considerations relating to the scope of the margin of appreciation 204. Although an overview of the relevant general principles deriving from the Court’s case-law is presented above (see paragraphs 183-185), and given that the margin of appreciation to be accorded to the competent national authorities will vary in the light of the nature of the issues and the seriousness of the interests at stake, the Court finds it important at the outset to proceed with a closer analysis of the various relevant considerations to be taken into account when determining the appropriate scope of the margin of appreciation in the specific circumstances of the present case. In this regard, the Court observes the following. 205. The Court has repeatedly held, on the one hand, that in the field of social security and fiscal matters the margin of appreciation enjoyed by States must be wide (see paragraph 184 above). On the other hand, it has also repeatedly held that only “very weighty reasons” could justify a difference in treatment based exclusively on the grounds of nationality for the purposes of Article 14 of the Convention, thus indicating a narrow margin and strict scrutiny by the Court (see Gaygusuz, cited above, § 42; Andrejeva, cited above, § 87; and Ribać, cited above, § 53). In Stec (cited above, § 52) the Court set out the requirement of “very weighty reasons”, followed by the principle of “wide margin” in general measures of economic or social strategy, including a reference to the test of “manifestly without reasonable foundation” (see also, albeit in the context of “other status”, Stummer, cited above, §§ 101 and 109). 206. That being stated, the Court notes, firstly, that while the scope of the margin of appreciation clearly cannot be the same as regards the adoption of general measures of economic and social policy and as regards the introduction, in that context, of differences in treatment based solely on criteria such as nationality, the Court finds it reasonable to consider that in a field where a wide margin is, and must be, granted to the State in formulating general measures, even the assessment of what may constitute “very weighty reasons” for the purposes of the application of Article 14 may have to vary in degree depending on the context and circumstances. 207. In its case-law, the Court has previously acknowledged that there may be valid reasons for giving special treatment to those whose link with a country stems from birth within it or who otherwise have a special link with a country (see Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali v. the United Kingdom, 28 May 1985, § 88, Series A no. 94, and Ponomaryovi v. Bulgaria, no. 5335/05, §§ 54-56, ECHR 2011). Thus, in Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandali, the Court accepted a measure whereby the United Kingdom (where, for historical reasons, several categories of “nationality” exist, with differences in the legal position notably regarding rights of entry and residence) restricted family reunification rights between spouses in respect of certain “nationals”, depending on where the spouse already resident in the country had been born. 208. In the present case, the Court notes in particular that the special status of “permanently resident non-citizens” was created by the Latvian legislature following the restoration of Latvia’s independence with a view to addressing the consequences of a situation which had arisen from an occupation and subsequent annexation in breach of international law (see paragraphs 105 ‑ 106 above). 209. Another factor to be taken into account with regard to the scope of the margin of appreciation is the specific temporal scope and context of the impugned measure. In this regard, it is important to underline that the sole issue in the present case concerns a difference in treatment which was introduced when the Latvian system of employment pensions was set up and which concerns only periods of employment completed outside the territory of Latvia in the period prior to the restoration of Latvia’s independence. 210. The Court therefore notes that the present case must be distinguished from that of Luczak v. Poland (no. 77782/01, ECHR 2007 ‑ XIII). In that case, the applicant was refused admission to the farmers’ social-security scheme on account of his nationality. Thus, he was prevented from obtaining and contributing to social cover for future periods of occupational activity as a farmer in the respondent State. By contrast, the issue in the present case concerns past periods of employment, completed outside the respondent State before the introduction of the occupational pension scheme. In this regard, it can be noted that the Court has previously accepted a difference in treatment based on nationality for reasons relating to the date from which the applicants developed ties with the respondent State (see British Gurkha Welfare Society and Others, cited above, §§ 84-85). The Court notes that in that case the applicants were Nepalese Gurkha soldiers whose pension entitlements were significantly lower than those of British soldiers with whom the Gurkhas had served, in the same units, in various parts of the world. The contested periods of service in respect of which there was a difference in the calculation and amount of the pensions between the Nepalese and the British nationals had been accrued outside the United Kingdom, at a time before the Gurkhas had any links to Britain. Although the contested periods consisted of service in the British Army abroad, in the units to which they were integrated, the Court found no violation of Article 14 in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, accepting that the respondent State had acted within its margin of appreciation when adopting the impugned domestic provisions, under which the equalisation of pension rights between the Nepalese and the British nationals was foreseen only for the period following the removal of the Gurkhas’ home base to the United Kingdom. 211. As highlighted by the Constitutional Court and the respondent Government, the choices made by the Latvian legislature when setting up the employment-based retirement pension system and determining the criteria for entitlement therein were directly linked to the particular historical and demographic circumstances of Latvia’s situation at the relevant time, together with the constraints imposed by the severe economic difficulties prevailing at the time. Thus, the present case, which concerns only past periods of employment dating back to the years prior to the restoration of Latvia’s independence, is characterised by the specific background to the impugned transitory measure concerning this pension system. The Court points out that it has already acknowledged the need for a wide margin of appreciation in the context of such fundamental changes to a country’s system as the transition from a totalitarian regime to a democratic form of government and the reform of the State’s political, legal and economic structure, phenomena which inevitably involve the enactment of large-scale economic and social legislation (see Broniowski v. Poland [GC], no. 31443/96, §§ 149 and 162 ‑ 63, ECHR 2004-V ). Furthermore, the Court reiterates that it may have regard to facts prior to the ratification of the Convention by the respondent State where such circumstances could be considered to have created a situation extending beyond that date or may be relevant for the understanding of facts occurring after that date (see, mutatis mutandis, Broniowski v. Poland (dec.) [GC], no. 31443/96, § 74, ECHR 2002-X, and Hoti v. Croatia, no. 63311/14, § 85, 26 April 2018). 212. Moreover, the Court notes that while the nature of a social benefit, in particular the question whether or to what extent it depends on prior individual contributions payable by the beneficiaries, is not in itself decisive for the determination of whether it constitutes an entitlement falling within the scope or the ambit of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see Andrejeva, cited above, § 76), the margin of appreciation may nonetheless depend on whether the impugned measure entails a loss of individual contributions paid by or on behalf of the individual affected by the measure (compare and contrast Pichkur v. Ukraine, no. 10441/06, § 51, 7 November 2013). Another factor which the Court has also taken into account is whether the lack of entitlement left the individual in question without social cover (see Stummer, cited above, § 108, and Janković, cited above). 213. In view of the above considerations, the Court considers that the assessment of whether the impugned difference in treatment is justified by “very weighty reasons” must be carried out against the background of the wide margin of appreciation to be applied in the circumstances of the present case. (γ) The assessment of proportionality 214. The Court observes, firstly, that the ground for the impugned difference in treatment which was introduced in the transitional provisions of the occupational pension system set up by the Latvian legislature is directly linked with the primary aim relied on by the Latvian Constitutional Court (see paragraph 196 above). The preferential treatment accorded to those possessing Latvian citizenship in respect of past periods of employment performed outside Latvia is therefore in line with that legitimate aim. 215. Secondly, the Court notes that the difference in treatment depended on the possession or, rather the lack, of Latvian citizenship, a legal status distinct from the national origin of the persons concerned and available to the applicants as “permanently resident non-citizens”. In this regard the Court notes, with reference to the Constitutional Court’s judgment, that the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” was devised as a temporary instrument so that the individuals concerned could obtain Latvian citizenship or choose another State with which to establish legal ties (see paragraph 55 above). In this respect, the Court can accept that in the context of difference in treatment based on nationality there may be certain situations where the element of personal choice linked with the legal status in question may be of significance with a view to determining the margin of appreciation left to the domestic authorities, especially in so far as privileges, entitlements and financial benefits are at stake (see, mutatis mutandis, Bah, cited above, § 47). It does not appear from the case file that any of the applicants has ever tried to obtain citizenship of Latvia – the country in which they have already been permanently settled for many years – or that they did so but were met with obstacles. It is clear that naturalisation depends on the fulfilment of certain conditions and may require certain efforts. This does not, however, alter the fact that the question of legal status, namely the choice between remaining a “permanently resident non-citizen” and acceding to citizenship, is largely a matter of personal aspiration rather than an immutable situation, especially in the light of the considerable time-frame available to the applicants to exercise that option (see paragraph 190 above). 216. Thirdly, the difference in treatment only concerned past periods of employment, completed prior to the introduction of the pension scheme in question. The choices made by the Latvian legislature when determining the criteria for entitlements in the employment-based retirement pension system were directly linked to the particular historical, economic and demographic circumstances, that is, the five decades of unlawful occupation and annexation, and the subsequent, particularly difficult situation prevailing in the wake of the restoration of Latvia’s independence. In contrast to the case of Andrejeva, the difference in treatment was limited to periods of employment completed by the applicants outside Latvia, before they settled in Latvia or had any other links with that country (see British Gurkha Welfare Society and Others, cited above, and paragraph 210 above). Only one of the applicants (the third) had been resident in Latvia prior to the period of military service at issue. 217. Fourthly, the impugned difference in treatment neither concerns the applicants’ entitlement to basic pension benefits, accorded under Latvian law irrespective of the individual’s employment history, nor does it entail any deprivation, or other loss, of benefits based on financial contributions made by the applicants in respect of the employment periods in question. 218. Furthermore, with particular regard to the second legitimate aim pursued (see paragraph 196 above), the Court notes that the Latvian system of employment pensions at issue was based on social insurance contributions and functioned according to the principle of solidarity, in the sense that the total amount of contributions collected was used to fund the current disbursement of pensions, payable to all the beneficiaries at a given time. Thus, determining the scope of eligible periods of employment inevitably had an impact on the level of the benefits and the contributions required to fund them. The Court considers that these types of trade-offs in social welfare systems generally call for a wide margin of appreciation. Given the particular difficulties and the complex policy choices facing the Latvian authorities after the restoration of independence, the Court cannot but recognise, in its overall assessment, a substantial degree of deference to be afforded to the Government (see, mutatis mutandis, Vistiņš and Perepjolkins v. Latvia [GC], no. 71243/01, § 113, 25 October 2012). 219. In sum, the Court accepts, in the light of all the above circumstances and the respective margin of appreciation, that the impugned difference in treatment was consistent with the legitimate aims pursued and that the grounds relied upon by the Latvian authorities to justify it can be deemed to amount to very weighty reasons. (v) Conclusion 220. In view of all the above considerations, the Court considers that in the specific circumstances of the present case the respondent State has not overstepped its margin of appreciation with regard to the applicants. The Court thus finds that it must reach a different conclusion from that of the Andrejeva case (see, a contrario, Martinie, cited above § 54). 221. There has accordingly been no violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
The Court held that there had been no violation of Article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property) to the Convention, finding that the domestic authorities had acted within their discretion concerning the assessment of the applicants’ pension entitlements. In particular, although the difference between payments had been solely down to nationality, the Court noted that taking Latvian nationality had been open to the applicants, especially given the long time-frame. It noted the broad discretion that Governments had in setting social-security payments, and held that rebuilding the Latvian nation’s life following the restoration of independence was sufficient to justify the difference in treatment.