5.  The applicants were born in 1947 and 1987 respectively and live in Zapolice. 6.  In 1990 the first applicant’s husband and the second applicant’s father, Mr Henryk Iwaszkiewicz, born in 1929, was granted a retirement pension under a regular retirement pension scheme and on the strength of premiums which he had been paying into the centralised social insurance fund. In 1997 he requested the Zduńska Wola Social Insurance Authority (Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych) to grant him a disability pension, together with so-called “veteran status” (“uprawnienia kombatanckie” - see paragraphs 17 to 21 below) since from 1940 to 1946 he had been imprisoned, together with his parents, in a labour camp in Siberia in the Soviet Union. Subsequently, Mr Iwaszkiewicz underwent a medical examination. 7.  On 17 December 1997 the Zduńska Wola Social Insurance Authority conferred veteran status on the applicant which entitled him to a veteran’s disability pension. It found, on the basis of the results of his medical examination, that his ill-health had been caused by his deportation and imprisonment by the Soviet authorities in the 1940s. 8.  Apparently in 2001 and 2002 doubts arose as to the accuracy of certain medical examinations, on the basis of which social insurance benefits had been granted by the Zduńska Wola Social Insurance Authority. By a letter of 24 October 2002 the Sieradz Regional Prosecutor requested that Authority to review, under section 114 of the Law of 17 December 1998 on retirement and disability pensions (ustawa o emeryturach i rentach z systemu ubezpieczeń społecznych - see paragraph 22 below), the final decisions issued in 115 disability pension cases. The request referred to a pending investigation in the case of a certain J.S. and other doctors who had been assessing claimants’ health for the purposes of social insurance proceedings. The prosecutor submitted that it was highly likely that in those cases serious irregularities concerning the assessment of the claimants’ eligibility for social insurance benefits had occurred. The list of cases attached to that request included Mr Iwaszkiewicz’s case. No allegation was ever made that the 1997 decision had been obtained by Mr Iwaszkiewicz in a fraudulent manner. 9.  In December 2002 Mr Iwaszkiewicz was invited to undergo a fresh medical examination. After that examination the Zduńska Wola Social Insurance Authority, by a decision of 5 March 2003, withdrew his veteran’s disability pension, referring to the doctors’ conclusions. They found that there had been no causal link between his deportation by the Soviet authorities and the health problems from which he suffered.  From that date onwards his status was again covered by the regular social insurance scheme and he was entitled to an ordinary disability pension.
He appealed against that decision to the Łódź Regional Court. 10.  During the ensuing judicial proceedings, Mr Iwaszkiewicz was examined on 10 June 2003 by a cardiologist and on 24 June 2003 by a psychiatrist. According to their opinions, he suffered from numerous serious ailments and he was completely unable to work. However, they concurred that his ailments had been caused by his age and not by his earlier deportation and imprisonment. 11.  On 27 November 2003 Mr Iwaszkiewicz died. The applicants joined the proceedings as his legal successors under the provisions of domestic law which expressly allowed them to seek payment of his pension covering the period from the date of the contested decision until the plaintiff’s death, and which gave them locus standi in the proceedings (see paragraph 26 below). The applicants sought payment of Mr Iwaszkiewicz’s veteran’s disability pension from 5 March 2003 until his death on 27 November 2003 and challenged the decision divesting him of his veteran’s status and of his veteran’s disability pension. 12.  On 6 August 2004 the Łódź Regional Court dismissed their appeal against the decision of 5 March 2003. The court had regard to the medical experts’ opinions and findings. It held that in the absence of a causal link between Mr Iwaszkiewicz’s deportation in the 1940s and his medical condition in 2002, he did not meet the requirements for veteran’s status laid down in section 12 (3) of the Law of 24 January 1991 on Veterans and Victims of War and Post-War Persecutions (Ustawa o kombatantach oraz niektórych osobach będących ofiarami represji wojennych i okresu powojennego - the (“the 1991 Law,” see paragraph 18 below). 13.  The applicants appealed. They submitted that the first-instance judgment was in breach of the applicable laws, in that the court had wrongly and illogically accepted that a medical assessment finding a causal link between the claimant’s health and his or her suffering in the past, on the strength of which veteran’s status and a veteran’s disability pension had been granted, could later be reversed. The existence of a causal link was not something that could reasonably change over time. 14.  Furthermore, Mr Iwaszkiewicz had considerably aged between 1997 and 2002 and his health had seriously deteriorated throughout that time. The medical examination carried out in 2002 could not therefore assess the link between the deportation and his health at the time when he applied for veteran’s status, the existence of such a link being decisive for entitlement to that status to arise. The applicants argued that there was no legal basis on which to challenge the medical assessment made during the examination of Mr Iwaszkiewicz’s original request for a veteran’s pension in 1997, as this pension had been granted by way of a final decision of the Social Insurance Authority. The contested decision of 5 March 2003 had also violated the principle that acquired rights should not be taken away. 15.  On 10 May 2005 the Łódź Court of Appeal dismissed the applicants’ appeal, sharing the conclusions of the lower court. 16.  On 28 March 2006 the Supreme Court refused to entertain the applicants’ cassation appeal. On 10 April 2006 the applicants requested the court to serve on them the written grounds for that refusal, to no avail.