Published on 29 January 2024
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 38437/22
Draga PULJIĆ
against Croatia
lodged on 3 August 2022
communicated on 9 January 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns discontinuation of the applicant’s survivor’s (family) pension which she had been receiving since 1997 as a widow of a Croatian war veteran who died in combat.
In particular, she was granted that pension in administrative proceedings by a decision of the Croatian Pension Fund of 19 February 1997. In 2014 the Croatian Pension Fund decided to reopen those proceedings on the basis of newly discovered evidence, and eventually discontinued her pension by a decision of 24 October 2016. Her administrative appeal and subsequent action for judicial review, as well as her constitutional complaint, were dismissed.
The authorities established that the applicant’s husband had not been recorded as a member of the Croatian armed forces in the database of the Ministry of Defence, that certificates of his participation in war and of his death in combat, on the basis of which her pension had been granted, could not be found, and that other evidence suggested that he had been killed on the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a member of the Croatian Defence Council, an armed force there made up mostly of Bosnian Croats.
Before the Court the applicant complains that the decision to discontinue her survivor’s (family) pension was in breach of her right to the peaceful enjoyment of her possessions.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Did the decision to discontinue the applicant’s survivor’s (family) pension deprive her of her possessions, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? If so, was that interference justified under this provision? In particular, was it proportionate (see Moskal v. Poland, no. 10373/05, §§ 49-76, 15 September 2009; Čakarević v. Croatia, no. 48921/13, §§ 71-91, 26 April 2018; and Romeva v. North Macedonia, no. 32141/10, §§ 54-79, 12 December 2019)?