50 specific age, to be prescribed by national law.199 c) Adequacy:200 Benefits, whether in cash or in kind, must be adequate in amount and duration in order that everyone may realize his or her rights to family protection and assistance, an adequate standard of living and adequate access to health care. States Parties must also pay full respect to the principle of human dignity and the principle of non-discrimination, so as to avoid any adverse effect on the levels of benefits and the form in which they are provided. The methods applied should ensure the adequacy of benefits. The adequacy criteria should be monitored regularly to ensure that beneficiaries are able to afford the goods and services they require to realize their Covenant rights. When a person makes contributions to a social security scheme that provides benefits to cover lack of income, there should be a reasonable relationship between earnings, paid contributions, and the amount of the relevant benefit.201 d) Accessibility: which includes: i) Coverage: all persons should be covered by the social security system, without discrimination. In order to ensure universal coverage, non-contributory schemes will be necessary; ii) Eligibility: the qualifying conditions for benefits must be reasonable, proportionate and transparent; iii) Affordability: if a social security scheme requires contributions, those contributions should be stipulated in advance. The direct and indirect costs associated with making contributions must be affordable for all and must not compromise the realization of other rights; iv) Participation and information: beneficiaries of social security schemes must be able to participate in 199 See General Comment Nº 6 (1995) on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Older Persons. 200 Cf. ILO, Recommendation No. 67, Income Security Recommendation, of May 12, 1944, adopted in Philadelphia, 26th Session CIT meeting, Guiding Principle 1, which establishes that: “1. Income security schemes should relieve want and prevent destitution by restoring, up to a reasonable level, income which is lost by reason of inability to work (including old age) or to obtain remunerative work or by reason of the death of a breadwinner.” Also see Recommendation No. 202, Social Protection Floors Recommendation, of June 14, 2012, adopted in Geneva, ILC 101st Session. Article 3, subparagraphs b) and c) establish that: “3. Recognizing the overall and primary responsibility of the State in giving effect to this Recommendation, Members should apply the following principles: b) entitlement to benefits prescribed by national law, and c) adequacy and predictability of benefits.” Article 4 establishes that: “4. Members should, in accordance with national circumstances, establish as quickly as possible and maintain their social protection floors comprising basic social security guarantees. The guarantees should ensure at a minimum that, over the life cycle, all in need have access to essential health care and to basic income security which together secure effective access to goods and services defined as necessary at the national level.” Article 5, subparagraphs a) and d) establish that: “5. The social protection floors referred to in Paragraph 4 should comprise at least the following basic social security guarantees: a) access to a nationally defined set of goods and services, constituting essential health care, including maternity care, that meets the criteria of availability, accessibility, acceptability and quality, and d) basic income security, at least at a nationally defined minimum level, for older persons.” Also, Article 8, subparagraphs b) and c) establish that: “8. When defining the basic social security guarantees, Members should give due consideration to the following: b) basic income security should allow for life in dignity. Nationally defined minimum levels of income may correspond to the monetary value of a set of necessary goods and services, national poverty lines, income thresholds for social assistance or other comparable thresholds established by national law or practice, and may take into account regional differences, and c) the levels of basic social security guarantees should be regularly reviewed through a transparent procedure that is established by national laws, regulations or practice, as appropriate.” 201 The Court also considers that an adequate level of benefits should provide a person with a decent standard of living that not only seeks to satisfy their purely biological needs, but also to ensure dignified living conditions. It is important to emphasize that, as a general rule, the retirement pensions of older adults constitute the only source of income for the pensioner and his family; therefore, an amount equivalent to an adequate level of income is of special importance for older persons. Colombia’s Constitutional Court has indicated that: “(…) in different judgments – some of which have involved a large number of individuals - the Court, following well-settled case law, has indicated that the right to social security may considered a basic right when failure to pay pension allowances violates or threatens to violate fundamental rights, such as the rights to life or health. This occurs in cases in which the failure to pay a pension endangers the minimum subsistence of retired persons, a very common situation among those who have reached old age, since they are no longer able to participate in the labor market and generally rely exclusively on their allowance for their subsistence.” Likewise, the Constitutional Court established that “To determine the effects on the right to minimum subsistence [that must be covered with the pensions of retirees] this body has defined it as ‘the portion of income the purpose of which is to cover basic needs such as food, health care, education, recreation, public utility services, etc.’ Therefore, our case law has considered that the concept of minimum subsistence includes not only a quantitative component of simple subsistence, but also a quantitative element related to respect for human dignity as a founding principle of the constitutional order”. Cf. Judgment T 236/2016 of May 13, 2016. Action of protection, paras. 4.1 and 4.4.