In 1998 and 2000, after she had returned to Croatia, the Croatian Pension Fund invited Mrs. Bozic to pay a sum of money for the period after November 1992 which would be considered as pension contributions. Mrs. Bozic made both payments and the Croatian Pension Fund issued certificates confirming payments.

 On 12 April 2002, after she had met the age criteria, Mrs. Bozic requested the Slavonski Brod Office of the Croatian Pension Fund to grant her pension and on the same day her request was dismissed 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.

IPC lawyer lodged an appeal against this decision with the Central Office of the Croatian Pension Fund which dismissed Mrs. Bozic’s appeal as ill-founded on the ground that the first-instance body correctly established all relevant facts. No particular reference was made to her payment of the contributions.

IPC lawyer further lodged an administrative action in the Administrative Court reiterating her previous arguments. Action was dismissed as ill-founded. In 2006 IPC lawyer made another step - lodged a constitutional complaint, and on 8 April 2009 the Constitutional Court dismissed the complaint as ill-founded.

Therefore, as the last instance, IPC lawyer lodged a request with the ECHR on 7 September 2009. On 24 April 2014, pursuant to the Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court, ECHR unanimously decided in favour of Marija Bozic and ordered to the Republic of Croatia to pay 20,500 EUR for pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage and 2,500 EUR for court costs and expenses.

The Court decided that the applicant’s right to derive benefits from the pension insurance has been infringed in a manner resulting in the impairment of the essence of her pension rights. In this connection the Court could not overlook the fact that, although the applicant’s pension was granted in accordance with the law, the interference with her enjoyment of the pension benefits deprived her of 128 monthly pension payments, which she had reasonably expected to receive from November 2000 to August 2011. In the Court’s view, the interference in question constitutes an individual and excessive burden on the applicant. Such a burden could have been eased only if in 2013 the applicant had been able to obtain her pension as of the date of her initial request, namely November 2000. As this option was excluded under Croatian law, the Court found that the essence of the applicant’s pension rights was impaired.

IPC is proud and pleased to announce this news because Mrs. Bozic  has been our beneficiary for a number of years and it represents the peak of IPC's work on the program “Access to Justice through Free Court Repesentation” which ended on 31 December 2013 after eleven years of implementation.

Please find the TV feature story on:  www.hrt.hr/enz/dnevnik/242849, 19^th minute.