(cf. Sub-paragraph 17.2 of the Constitutional Court Judgment in the Case No. 200908-01 passed on 26 November 2009). Therefore, the restriction of fundamental rights in the impugned provisions has been duly established by the law. 27. In the case of any restriction of fundamental rights, there must be circumstances and arguments justifying such a restriction, that is, it must be imposed for the sake of significant interests, a legitimate end (cf., e.g., Paragraph 23 of the Constitutional Court Judgment in the Case No. 2007-01-01 passed on 8 June 2007). Although the Constitution, inter alia Article 116 thereof, does not specify directly the cases when the fundamental rights established by Article 109 could be restricted, these fundamental rights cannot be deemed as absolute either. The Constitution is a single body and the provisions included therein should be interpreted systemically. The assumption that no restrictions can be imposed on particular fundamental rights would contradict with both the fundamental rights of other persons granted by the Constitution and other provisions of the Constitution (cf. Paragraph 2 of the Concluding Part of the Constitutional Court Judgment in the Case No. 2002-04-03 passed on 22 October 2002). When restricting the rights, the institution that has issued an impugned regulation – in this specific case, the Saeima in the first place – is obliged to present and justify a legitimate end for such a restriction. 27.1. The Saeima as well as the Cabinet of Ministers pointed out that the restriction included in the impugned provisions had a legitimate end, namely, to protect not only the interests of the State social insurance special budget but also the constitutional values specified in Article 116 of the Constitution – the rights of other persons, also taking into account the obligation of the State to ensure both the disbursement of state pensions and rendering of other services granted by the social security system in the future. It follows from the information provided by the Saeima that the impugned provisions were adopted in the circumstances when the economic situation of the Republic of Latvia had been in a rapid decline. The State budget revenues had been decreasing, unemployment growing, bringing about the increase of the social insurance special budget expenditures. In the second quarter of 2009 Latvia underwent the most rapid 39

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