Concept of the principles of the social security law and their role in the regulation of the social security relations

This article represents one of the few attempts to conceptualize the role of some social security law principles in the regulation of social security relations. The author starts from conceptualizing the meaning of law principle as such and emphasizes the growing role of law principles in today's jurisprudence. There are six principles discussed in this article: 1. The principle of the proper reflection of the personal needs in the base of social maintenance; 2. The principle of the equality between men and women; 3. The principle of social solidarity; 4. The principle of the differentiation and unity of the retirement provisions; 5. The depolitization principle of the retirement provisions; 6. The valorization principle of the pension. The first principle means, those social security relations, including the pension relations, and the provisions regulating them shall not stay unchanged for a very long time frame. The principle of the equality between men and women shall not be challenged, though the author indicates some problems when implementing it in practice. The principle of social solidarity is one of the basic principles of the social security. Though, as the author suggests, it is being contravened recently just after the Law of the accumulation of the pensions went into force. The principle of the differentiation and unity of the retirement provisions requests to seek for maximum unifying of the provisions of retirement for most pensioners, by leaving the possibility of differentiated provision just for just a small circle of persons. The depolitization principle of the retirement provisions means that retirement provisions shall be implemented on the base of objective criteria of the existing needs, rather than on the interests of particular parties or representatives of particular professions etc. The valorization principle of the pension means that the value of the pension has to be corrected following the inflation processes, so their real value would not decline. In author's view every of these principles is being contravened in today's Lithuania's social security system. Some of the pension provisions are not in accordance with actual situation. By discussing every of the indicated principles the author gives reasoned suggestions, how the particular provisions should be amended, so they would proper reflect the actual circumstances of contemporary social relation