SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT 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: 65