Published on 28 February 2022
FIRST SECTION
Application no. 32306/16
Mariusz CEGIELSKI
against Poland
lodged on 2 June 2016
communicated on 7 February 2022
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the refusal to grant interest on the applicant’s retirement pension, the payment of which was resumed by virtue of a court judgment declaring that the pension’s initial revocation had been wrongful.
The applicant was in receipt of a retirement pension that included his work as an officer at the Ministry of the Interior from 1981 to 1990.
On 17 December 2009 the Director of the Board for Pensions of the Ministry of the Interior and Administration, pursuant to the 1994 Act on amendments to the law on old-age pensions of the functionaries of the police (see Cichopek and Others v. Poland (dec.), no. 15189/10, § 6, 14 May 2013) and on the basis of a personal file received from the Institute of National Remembrance (“the IPN”), issued a decision on the re-assessment of the applicant’s pension whereby his benefits were reduced, counting as from 1 January 2010 in respect of the time the applicant had worked for the Ministry of the Interior.
On 2 December 2011 the Warsaw Regional Court partly changed the pension authority’s decision in that it reinstated the applicant’s entitlement to a pension for the period from 1 October 1983 to 29 June 1986 when the applicant had in fact been studying at an Officers’ School. This judgment was upheld by the Warsaw Court of Appeal on 12 March 2013.
On 11 July 2013 the Director of the Board for Pensions refunded the applicant his wrongly revoked retirement pension in respect of the period of his studies. On 23 July 2013 the pensions authority granted the applicant interest for the period from 12 April 2013 to 19 July 2013.
The applicant challenged the decision on interest, seeking interest from 1 January 2010 – the date on which his pension was effectively revoked.
On 5 August 2014 the Warsaw Regional Court granted the applicant interest from 6 January 2010 to 11 April 2013. The court held that the applicant should not have been a victim of the pensions authority’s erroneous decision.
The Director of the Board for Pensions appealed.
On 4 November 2015 the Warsaw Court of Appeal changed the first‑instance court’s judgment and dismissed the applicant’s action. The appellate court held that the pension authority would have been liable to pay interest only if it had been responsible for a delay in pension payment. The court found that, in the applicant’s case, the pensions authority had established the period of the applicant’s work for the Ministry of the Interior given the information received from the IPN and decreased the applicant’s pension accordingly. In the appellate court’s view, the Director of the Board for Pensions – unlike a court – had not been entitled to verify the accuracy of that information. The authority could therefore change its decision on the applicant’s pension no sooner than after the court’s judgment of 12 March 2013. It followed that the pensions authority could not be held liable for interest for any period prior to that date.
The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that he was deprived of his possessions on account of the court’s refusal to grant him interest for the whole period for which his wrongly revoked retirement pension was not paid to him. The applicant also complains under Article 14 of the Convention that he was discriminated against on the grounds of his status as a former-regime officer, because matters of interest were regulated differently for civilian pensions.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Given the refusal to grant the applicant interest from the date when his wrongfully revoked pension had effectively stopped,
1. Has the applicant been deprived of his possessions in breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?
2. Has the applicant suffered discrimination in the enjoyment of his rights guaranteed by Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, on the grounds of his special pensioner status, contrary to Article 14 of the Convention?