to persons, M. Poršņova reminded that Latvia has ratified Article 13 of the European Social Charter. Consequently, Latvia has undertaken to ensure that any person who is without adequate resources and who is unable to secure such resources either by his or her own efforts or from other sources be granted adequate assistance. In Latvia, a large number of elderly people – mostly those who do not have families, particularly women, who have longer life – are subject to the risk of poverty. During the economic growth, the proportion of these residents has increased from 21 percent in 2005 to 30 percent in 2006 and 33 percent in 2007. Approximately 75 percent of the elderly, lone pensioners are subject to the risk of poverty. Although the Constitution guarantees the residents the rights to a stable and predictable social protection system, including a commensurate financial provision, inconsistencies in the implementation of social policy and discrepancies between the promises and decisions of every government of the last years make the residents doubt the stability of the social protection system as well as the capability of the State to ensure their social protection in the cases provided by the law. Any publicly accessible documents contain no grounds for the allegation that the impugned provisions have been adopted as a result of pressure exerted by the international creditors. M. Poršņova also thought that there was no justification for dividing the old-age pension recipients into groups depending on whether they have been granted their old-age pension before or after 1 January 1996 – the date of the Law on State Pensions coming into force. The existing system is a kind of reconciliation between the older and younger generations, as a result of which pension disbursement can be guaranteed also to those persons who could not participate in the creation of the new system due to their age. 19. The Summoned party – expert in finance Ģirts Rungainis – indicated that pensions and allowances paid from the social insurance budget cannot be deemed as person’s property. They can only be deemed as a certain pledge on the part of the State to make disbursements from the solidarity fund, taking into account, for example, person’s input or length of service. Such disbursements depend on whether the State can afford making these payments in a given situation. No doubt, by decreasing the amount of pension or allowance, the State disappoints the recipients of these disbursements. Nevertheless, in the current situation income restrictions have an effect 25