(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
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