SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS seeks to remedy, as was the situation for the British Gurkha. On the contrary, at the end of the occupation period they were all in a similar situation regarding their pension claims, irrespective of their nationality. 12. I can agree with the Government that the historical context should be adequately taken into account. As emphasised by the Latvian Constitutional Court, upon the restoration of its independence Latvia was not obliged to assume the USSR’s responsibilities (see paragraph 203 of the present judgment). When Latvia set up its pension scheme in 1996, it was confronted with considerable difficulties (Andrejeva, cited above, § 86), given that the resources of the USSR State Bank were not shared (see paragraph 55 of the present judgment). However, once Latvia introduced 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 under an obligation to comply with Article 14 taken in conjunction with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The Government have failed to explain how the injustice suffered by the Latvian population during the period of illegal occupation and annexation by the Soviet Union justifies the impugned difference in treatment on the basis of nationality, without regard to the circumstances of those former citizens of the Soviet Union who were not, and are not, Latvian citizens. Given that the Convention is based on a system of individual rights, the fact that the Soviet Union unlawfully annexed Latvia and, as an occupying State, committed illegal acts and maintained the unlawful occupation for five decades, does not in itself justify reserving unfavourable treatment on the sole basis of their nationality for all former subjects of the Soviet Union who have settled in Latvia, even if this occurred as a result of the immigration policies imposed by the Soviet Union. What is at issue is not a matter of ex injuria ius non oritur, according to which States must not benefit from prior illegal conduct, but rather the issue of protecting individuals from discrimination, as prohibited under the Convention. The possibility of concluding bilateral agreements on social issues does not detract from this obligation under the Convention (see Andrejeva, § 90, and, mutatis mutandis, Koua Poirrez, § 49, both cited above). 13. The difference in treatment between nationals and non-nationals laid down in the transitional provisions with regard to periods of employment accrued outside Latvia in the period prior to the restoration of independence in 1991 resulted in a situation where even those non-nationals who subsequently, by the time of their retirement, had resided and worked in Latvia for the major part of their lives were unable to have the periods before 1991 counted toward their occupational retirement pensions on the same basis as Latvian citizens. The fact that the employees’ share of these contributions is levied on both nationals and non-nationals, on an equal basis, militates against a difference in treatment based on nationality (compare Luczak, cited above, § 55). Although the pre-1992 periods of employment accrued outside 95