SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT 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 58