state budget funds at the expense of such an unprotected group of society, namely, the
recipients of old age pensions, is unacceptable.
Likewise, the legitimate end of the impugned provisions cannot be the one
mentioned in the Disbursement Law – “to grant social security to persons within the
limits of the available financing”. On the contrary, the state has to provide financing
for the satisfaction of social needs in the amount guaranteed by the legislative acts.
When determining whether the impugned provisions are proportionate and
whether the same ends could be reached by other means that interfere less with the
rights of persons, it should be considered that social rights are different human rights
since they depend on the economic situation in the country and the available resources.
If there is not enough financing in the state social budget to safeguard the above
principles, the state should look for other alternatives.
The additional explanations to the Application of the members of the
Parliament list the following other alternatives: firstly, to increase income by
improving collection of the existing taxes; secondly, to reduce other budget
expenditures; thirdly, to introduce new taxes or to increase the existing ones. Noncompliance of the impugned provisions to the Constitution follows also from the draft
law annotation that states a risk that these provisions might contradict Articles 1 and
109 of the Constitution.
2.3. As to Article 3, Paragraph One of the Disbursement Law, lack of
consultations with experts during preparation of the draft law is also considered as its
substantial drawback. Thus, the fiscal effect of the provision has not been duly
assessed; moreover, it can even be disputed. A situation when the fiscal effect of the
provision turns out exactly the opposite and the resources of the state social insurance
budget would decrease is also possible.
Likewise, there is no substantiation as to why the legislator has included this
particular amount of pension disbursement decrease in the impugned provisions, i.e.
70 percent. The Applications also dispute the allegation that the impugned provisions
have been adopted because the international creditors – the European Commission and
the International Monetary Fund (hereinafter – IMF) – had had required so.
Article 3, Paragraph One of the Disbursement Law does not comply with
Article 91 of the Constitution because it envisages unequal situation between
5