12. On 4 August 1997 the applicant made an application to the Vienna Chamber of Lawyers asking it to grant him an old-age pension. In his request he referred to the fact that he had practised as a lawyer between 1964 and 1995.
13. On 16 June 1998 Division IV of the Executive Committee of the Chamber of Lawyers (Ausschuß der Rechtsanwaltskammer) dismissed the applicant's application. It found that, under the relevant provisions of the Statute of the Chamber of Lawyers Pension Fund, an old-age pension is granted to a lawyer when he or she reaches the retirement age, that is, sixty‑five years old. However, he or she must also have renounced his or her right to practise as a lawyer. Given that, before he reached the retirement age, the applicant had already lost his right to practice as a lawyer, he was not entitled to an old-age pension.
[...]
42. The Court reiterates that the right to a pension is not, as such, guaranteed by the Convention. However, according to the case-law of the Convention institutions, the right to a pension which is based on employment can in certain circumstances be assimilated to a property right (see Apostolakis v. Greece, no.
39574/07, § 27, 22 October 2009).
43. This may be the case where special contributions have been paid: in its judgment in the case of Gaygusuz v. Austria (see Gaygusuz v. Austria, 16 September 1996, §§ 39-41, Reports of Judgments and Decisions 1996‑IV), the Court held that entitlement to a social benefit is linked to the payment of contributions, and, when such contributions have been made, an award cannot be denied to the person concerned. That case concerned the issue of emergency aid granted by the State to people in need, which, the Court held, was a pecuniary right for the purposes of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. The Court found a violation of Article 14 of the Convention combined with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 because the Government had refused to grant the award on grounds of nationality.
44. That may also be the situation where an employer has given a more general undertaking to pay a pension on conditions which can be considered to be part of an employment contract (see Sture Stigson v. Sweden, no.
12264/86, Commission decision of 13 July 1998).
45. The present case differs to a certain extent from the ones quoted above, because it neither concerns social security benefits in general nor expectations to receive a pension based on an employment contract. However, the Court considers that the compulsory affiliation to an old-age pension scheme, based on the equally compulsory membership of a professional organisation during the exercise of a profession, may also give rise to the legitimate expectation to receive pension benefits at the point of retirement and constitutes a possession within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
[...]
57. The Court cannot find that, by completely depriving the applicant of all of his entitlements to a pension, after having contributed to the pension scheme during the whole of his professional career both individually and collectively (see §§ 24-25), a fair balance was struck between the competing interests. It rather seems as if an excessive individual burden was placed on the applicant (see Immobiliare Saffi v. Italy, [GC], no.
22774/93, § 59, ECHR 1999-V).
58. Accordingly there has been a breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
Onneksi terveysalalle rekrytäänkin ulkomailta jos kotimaasta ei saada tarpeeksi väkeä. Toki palkkatasoakin pitää voida säätää jos nykytasolla ollaan jatkuvassa alimiehityksessä. Maahanmuuttajien osuus on kasvanut todella paljon 15 vuodessa.
