SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT 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 57