SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT 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 56