FIRST SECTION
Application no. 50636/09
Marija BOŽIĆ
against Croatia
lodged on 24 August 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Ms Marija Božić, is a Croatian national, who was born in 1940 and lives in Lipovača. She is represented before the Court by Mrs M. Trninić, a lawyer practising in Slavonski Brod.
The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
In the period between 1 January 1980 and 30 November 1992 the applicant was insured by the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje) as a private agricultural entrepreneur. In November 1992 the applicant left Croatia and she lost her status of an insured person.
On 6 April 1998, after she had returned to Croatia, the Croatian Pension Fund invited the applicant to pay a sum of money for the period after November 1992 which would be considered as pension contributions (dokup staža).
On the same day the applicant made a payment of an unspecified sum of money and the Croatian Pension Fund issued a certificate, which reads as follows:
“This is to confirm that the person in obligation to pay contributions BOŽIĆ MARIJA made a full payment of due contributions on 6 April 1998 into the [pension insurance fund]. This certificate ... serves as evidence from the central register for the registration of the pensionable years in the workbook, and cannot be used for other purposes.
For the insured person the [period concerned is from] 1 January 1980 [until] 31 December 1994.
FOR THE REGISTRATION OF PENSIONABLE YEARS”
On 21 November 2000 the Croatian Pension Fund invited the applicant to pay a further sum of money as a remainder to her full pension contributions. The applicant complied with this request and paid 11,663 Croatian kunas.
On 12 April 2002, after she had met the age criteria, the applicant requested the Croatian Pension Fund to grant her pension.
On the same day the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje Područna služba u Slavonskom Brodu) dismissed the applicant’s request on the ground that she had been insured only in the period between 1980 and November 1992 which was not sufficient to grant her pension.
The applicant lodged an appeal against the above decision with the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Fund (Hrvatski zavod za mirovinsko osiguranje Središnja služba) arguing, inter alia, that based on the instructions of the Croatian Pension Fund she had made payment for her full pension contributions qualifying her for pension.
On 13 May 2002 the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Fund dismissed the applicant’s appeal as ill-founded on the ground that the first-instance body correctly established all relevant facts. No particular reference was made to the applicant’s payment of the contributions.
The applicant further lodged an administrative action in the Administrative Court (Upravni sud Republike Hrvatske) reiterating her previous arguments.
On 28 September 2006 the Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s action as ill-founded. The relevant part of the decision reads:
“Since the administrative action itself reveals that the plaintiff left the territory where she lived as an agricultural entrepreneur, which was the ground for her pension insurance, the defendant body correctly established the relevant facts and applied the relevant law when dismissing the plaintiff’s action against the first-instance decision, which had found that the applicant had lost the status of an insured person because she had failed to meet the statutory conditions.
The plaintiff’s objection that she made a payment for her pension contributions based on the request of the Croatian Pension Fund has no influence on the correctness of the impugned decision because she left her residence where she had had a status of an agricultural entrepreneur.”
On an unspecified date in 2007 the applicant lodged a constitutional complaint with the Constitutional Court (Ustavni sud Republike Hrvatske) reiterating her previous arguments and invoking, inter alia, Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
On 8 April 2009 the Constitutional Court dismissed the applicant’s constitutional complaint as ill-founded endorsing the reasoning of the lower bodies. This decision was served on the applicant on 22 April 2009.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains, under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, that she was deprived of her pension contributions.
She further invokes Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention but without any further substantiation.
The applicant also complains under Article 14 of the Convention that she was discriminated against based on her ethnic origin.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been an interference with the applicant’s peaceful enjoyment of her pension contributions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
2. Has the applicant been deprived of a pension in the public interest, and in accordance with the conditions provided for by law, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
3. If so, was that interference necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties?
4. In particular, did that interference impose an excessive individual burden on the applicant (see Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy, [GC], no. 22774/93, § 59, ECHR 1999-V?
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