budget deficit. In order to curb this tendency and to ensure further sustainability of the
social insurance budget, the deficit had to be reduced.
The Applicants hold that the impugned provisions have two ends – the economy of the
State budget funds and the enactment of the rights of other persons to social security.
The Ombudsman and A. Kovalevska, in turn, pointed out that the balancing of
expenditures and revenues of the special budget should be deemed as the legitimate
end of the impugned provisions (see Case materials, vol. 9, p. 182f and vol. 10, p.
116).
It follows from the opinion furnished by the Bank of Latvia and G. Rungainis that the
reduction of the state budget deficit and the budget balancing can be deemed as the
legitimate end of the impugned provisions (see Case materials, vol. 9, p. 118 and vol.
10, pp. 1-3).
27.2. The Constitutional Court has adjudicated that a pension disbursement restriction
can have a legitimate end – to solve financial problems in the social budget (cf., e.g.,
Paragraph 2 of the Concluding Part of the Constitutional Court Judgment in the Case
No. 2001-12-01 passed on 19 March 2002). Equally, the Constitutional Court has
concluded that balancing the revenues and expenditures of the pension special budget
can be a legitimate end for pension disbursement restriction. One should especially
consider the need to preclude deficit in the State pension special budget as well as the
need to ensure that pension disbursements continue in the future (cf. Paragraph 8 of
the Constitutional Court Judgment in the Case No. 2005-08-01 passed on 11
November 2005).
The main challenge of the pension system is to ensure its sustainability. The UN
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has also affirmed that social
security scheme should be sustainable, especially with respect to pensions – to
guarantee that both the current and future generations would be able to enact their
rights to pension (see UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,
General Comment No. 19. The right to social security, E/C.12/GC/19 4 February
2008, para. 11). Thus, the system of pensions is intended not only for the existing
pension recipients; it is intended for securing pension to the future generations as well.
In this context the system of pensions is related to ensuring the welfare of society.
41
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