SAVICKIS AND OTHERS v. LATVIA JUDGMENT B. Merits 1. The parties’ arguments (a) The applicants 157. The applicants declared that their complaint concerned solely their claim for the inclusion in the calculation of their retirement pensions of those same periods which were included in calculating the equivalent pensions for Latvian citizens; thus, they were not claiming any additional benefits. The failure to include the impugned employment and equivalent periods in the calculation had led to a reduction of the applicants’ overall insurance period and had directly affected the amount of their retirement pensions. It had also barred four of the five applicants from retiring early and had prevented them from benefitting from favourable conditions in determining the initial capital sum that was used to calculate their pensions. As a result, the first, fourth and fifth applicants had received the minimum pension. 158. The applicants reiterated that, had they been Latvian citizens, the respective employment and equivalent periods accrued in the territory of the former USSR would have been taken into account in calculating the “insurance period” which was subsequently used to determine their entitlement to state pensions and the amount thereof. Thus, the impugned difference in treatment had been based solely on nationality. 159. With respect to the legitimate aim of the difference in question, the applicants conceded that it pursued the aim of protecting the country’s economic system. However, they doubted whether this aim still retained its full importance today. Regarding the proportionality of the difference in treatment, the applicants pointed out that the special status of “permanently resident non-citizens” was in substance similar to Latvian citizenship, as it established a special legal bond between the State and the individual. Furthermore, Latvia was the only State with which the applicants had stable legal ties and thus the only State which, objectively, could assume responsibility for them in terms of social security. All of them had lived most of their lives in Latvia; the third applicant had lived there since the age of three. Accordingly, the applicants considered that, irrespective of any circumstantial differences, the facts of the present case could not reasonably be distinguished from those of the above-cited Andrejeva case. In particular, they did not agree that Ms Andrejeva had had a closer legal tie with Latvia than they or any other “permanently resident non-citizens” did. In any event, the status of “permanently resident non-citizen” had been the only aspect invoked by the Court in its finding of a violation in the Andrejeva case. 160. The applicants admitted that, unlike Ms Andrejeva, they had actually lived outside the territory of Latvia during the periods not included in the calculation. However, they referred to paragraph 85 of the Andrejeva judgment, where the aspect of residence had been considered irrelevant. 54