SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT – SEPARATE OPINIONS only partially considered, whereas for the calculation of the military pension of other soldiers these years were fully taken into account. However, the Gurkha soldiers possessed Nepalese nationality. Moreover, 1 July 1997 was the date when their home base, until then located in Hong Kong, was moved to the United Kingdom. Only from that date onwards were the Gurkha soldiers able to apply for settlement in the United Kingdom. As the Court noted, before 1 July 1997, these soldiers had “no ties to the United Kingdom and no expectation of settling there following their discharge from the Army” (British Gurkha Welfare Society and Others, cited above, § 85). The situation of the Gurkha soldiers is patently different from that of complainants such as the applicants in the present case for the reasons outlined above and highlighted thirteen years ago in the Andrejeva judgment. 23. Finally, the majority note that the impugned difference in treatment “neither concerns the applicants’ entitlement to basic pension benefits, accorded under Latvian law regardless of the individual’s employment history, nor does it entail any deprivation, or other loss, of benefits based on financial contributions made by the applicants in respect of the employment periods in question” (see paragraph 217 of the present judgment). We do not deny this. Indeed, the difference in treatment concerns only a supplement to the basic pension. But the question before the Court is not whether the respondent State has allocated a scarce resource fairly between different categories of claimants (compare Bah v. the United Kingdom, no. 56328/07, §§ 48-50, ECHR 2011), thereby ensuring a decent standard for everyone. The issue is, more generally, whether it can reserve a pension supplement to those inhabitants whom it considers “citizens” and treat differently a category of permanent residents who, with regard to the calculation of their retirement pensions, are recognised as being in a similar situation, except for their nationality. 24. As regards the proportionality assessment, there is another issue that we would like to briefly comment upon. Before the Court, the Government relied on Latvia’s “constitutional identity” (see paragraphs 176, 196 and 198 of the present judgment). In this respect, we fear another potentially dangerous and slippery slope. We do not contest the importance of a State’s constitutional identity nor the need for reliance on such considerations in certain circumstances. However, a State’s constitutional identity is usually associated with its fundamental structures, political and constitutional. We find it difficult to accept that in 2009, when the Court handed down the Andrejeva judgment, nineteen years after the restoration of independence, and even more so in 2022, Latvia can continue to justify differential treatment in relation to the calculation of a pension supplement affecting a now very reduced category of permanent residents with reference to its constitutional identity. In its judgments in relation to Latvia the Court has approached with care questions relating to the fallout of its history and challenges following the restoration of independence 87