26 April 2016
On decisions adopted and issues reviewed at the sitting of the Council for the Judiciary on 25 April
Latvian system of justice is assessed positively in the European Union
Annual summary by the European Commission on results in field of justice,EU Justice Scoreboard, which has been elaborated since 2013, in report of this year approves progress made by Latvia in work of justice system.
InEU Justice Scoreboard,justice systems of 28 Member States of the European Union have been assessed in three aspects – efficiency of judicial system (length of proceedings), quality of judicial system (supervision and assessment)and independence of judicial system (questionnaires, budget, and authority of the Council for the Judiciary). Quantitative data forEU Justice Scoreboardhas been provided by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice(CEPEJ), the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, European judicial co-operation networks, and group of national contacts of states.
Having discussed results of summary, the Council for the Judiciary concluded that strong points of Latvian court system are availability of judgements, electronic communication, quality and accounting system and gender equality.
However, weak points are budget allocated to courts, extrajudicial dispute resolution (mediation) and self-assessment of judges on their independence – in this aspect, Latvia has the lowest score.
As the most significant indicator, Ivars Bickovics, the Chairman of the Council for the Judiciary, pointed out the fact that Latvia, opposite to assessments often expressed in public space, is not among those Member States of the European Union, which have been recognised as problematic for investments.
The Council for the Judiciary recognisesEU Justice Scoreboardas a source of objective information, which helps to acknowledge strong and weak points, imperfections, necessary improvements and directions of developments of our court system.
On assessment of court system and rule of law in Latvia provided by investors and businessmen
Arnis Sauka, the associate professor of the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga and the Director of Centre for Sustainable Business, presented to the Council for the Judiciary the study on businessmen’s assessment on Latvian court system, which is carried out by the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice.
The goal of the study was to specify the main aspects affecting the assessment by businessmen. Those are quality of court judgements, length of adjudication of civil cases, services provided by courts and marks of corruption in work of courts.
From among all elements, which affect quality of the court system, Latvian businessmen, in accordance with study data, gave comparatively the highest assessment to services provided by courts, inter alia, work of chanceries, attitude by the court personnel and the equipment of rooms of court hearings. At the same time, the Council for the Judiciary recognised that it was necessary to study and to analyse aspects, which establish perception of corruption, in detail, because approximately 16 per cent from among questioned businessmen recognised that, when acting as parties to a case, they came in touch with marks of corruption in the court.
In general, businessmen assess the quality of Latvian system of justice indifferently – average assessment is 2.57 in 5-point system. It shows a potential for the development of quality of Latvia system of justice, or improvement of communication with businessmen, when explaining operation and development of Latvian system of justice.
The Council for the Judiciary also listened to assessment of the court system and rule of law in Latvia, provided by the Foreign Investor’s Council, in broader sense. GirtsGreiskalns, the Executive Director of the Foreign Investors’ Council, and Maris Vainovskis, the Head of the Court System Efficiency/Investment Protection work group, were also invited to participate in conversation. They pointed out that problems being discussed by foreign investors do not differ from those the local businessmen deal with: availability of labour force, system of education and rule of law on the merits. If five years ago investors saw inefficiency of Latvian court system as the main problem, then currently foreign investors express their concerns regarding the rule of law in broader sense – as the force, including also other institutions belonging to the court system, and institutions, which do not belong to the court system, but refer to supervision over law, for example, the State Revenue Service.
Having listened to and discussed opinions expressed, the Council for the Judiciary pointed out that it would be important to separate issues of responsibility of the court system from responsibility of other institutions and the state regarding the strengthening of rule of law in the state in general. By reducing all negative aspects to the court system only, the society has been misled and judicial authorityhas been affected negatively, and that, in its turn, does not facilitate trust of businessmen and investors to Latvian court system.
Assessment of professional activity of judges urges judges to improve themselves
Having completed the first evaluation of professional activity of all Latvia judges, which had been carried out for three years, the Judicial Qualification Committee concluded that, along with evaluation of professional activity, understanding among judges regarding their obligation of professional improvement and development has increased.
Maris Vigants, the Chair of the Judicial Qualification Committee, informed the Council for the Judiciary of results – the absolute majority of judges have received positive evaluation of professional activity, negative opinion being given only to six first instance judges.
The Judicial Qualification Committee has concluded that judges have understood the necessity for continuous professional improvement, because, irrespective of length of service, instance or their own will, they will have to undergo evaluation of professional activity again in five years.The Chair of the Committee urged Chairs of courts and the Court Administration to analyse facilitating and impeding circumstances, which have been mentioned in judges’ self-evaluations, and to observe those in within organisation of work of courts.
The new system of evaluation has also improved abilities of Chairs of courts to assess their judges professionally; more qualitative and analytical documents have been received from the Court Administration, and judges of regional courts and the Supreme Court have contributed much to analysis of rulings passed by judges of lower instances.
The evaluation process has improved, at the same time showing problematic aspects. The Council for the Judiciary urged the Judicial Qualification Committee to acknowledge these aspects and to propose improvement of legal provisions, if necessary.
Amendments to the Civil Procedure Law to make work of the cassation instance efficient are supported
The Council for the Judiciary supported amendments to the Civil Procedure Law being currently advanced in the Saeima (Parliament), which are envisaged to increase the efficiency of cassation proceedings.
Edite Vernusa, the Chair of the Department of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court, and Rihards Gulbis, the Legal Adviser to the department, when presenting the envisaged amendments to the Council for the Judiciary, pointed out that the purpose of amendments to the law is to decrease terms of adjudication of civil cases in cassation instance and to ensure primary direction of resources of the Department of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court to review of legal issues, which are fundamental and important for the entire legal system.
The draft law envisages specification of reasons of rejections to initiate cassation proceedings, stipulating that it is possible not to initiate proceedings, if the panel of judges does not have clear reason to believe that the outcome of the case included in the appealed judgement is incorrect, and if the case does not have significant importance for ensuring of unified case-law or further development of law.There has also been planned to introduce a new reason of rejection of initiation of cassation proceedings, namely, the criteria of contested sum (2100Euros) in property disputes.
It has been envisaged to increase the amount of security deposit from 284.57 to 300 Euros and to refuse from automatic release from obligation to pay a security deposit in cases, when a court had released a participant to a case from the payment of state fee at some previous stage of proceedings.
The regulation regarding the right of the panel of judges of the Supreme Court to refuse to admit the ancillary complains in cases, when those are obviously ill-founded, has been specified.
Finally, the draft law envisages stipulation of right of the cassation instance to compose judgement insimplified manner in cases, when the appealed judgement is correct and includes case-law; the case-law of the Supreme Court in similar cases is not observed in the appealed judgement, and there are no reasoning for non-observance thereof.
The cassation instance court will have right to prolong the deadline for composition of complete text of a judgement, if the court establishes that qualitative preparation of the judgement requires longer time than it was initially determined.
Upon completion of the reform, number of judges of the Supreme Court will be reduced
The Council for the Judiciary will submit a proposal to the Saeima (Parliament) to determine that as from 1 January 2017 there are 36 judges in the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, instead of previous 48 judges.
The reduction is related to the fact that the Chamber of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court shall cease to exist on 31 December 2016, and the Supreme Court will be only cassation instance in future.
The Council for the Judiciary determined the number of judges in each department of the Supreme Court after 1 January – there will be 17 judges in the Department of Civil Cases, 8 judges in the Department of Criminal Cases and 10 judges in the Department of Administrative Cases.
Issues related to career of judges
The Council for the Judiciary supported appointment of several Chairs of courts, their deputies and Chairs of a court house to the offices.
The Council for the Judiciary supports that Zemgale regional court will be presided by Inguna Preisa, who has held this office since 2005, and her total length of service in judge’s office is 26 years, also in next five years.
The Council for the Judiciary also supported the proposal on re-appointment of ModrisLapins to the office of the Chair of the Judicial Panel of Criminal Cases and the deputy Chair of Vidzeme regional court, and on re-appointment of Rinalda Liepina to the office of the Chair of Madona court house of Vidzeme regional court.
It has been envisaged to appoint Ilze Vanaga, the judge of Riga city Zemgale suburb court, to the office of the deputy Chair of this court for the term of five years.
The Council for the Judiciary determined that Inese Berzina, who was appointed to the office of a judge of a district (city) court by the decision of the Saeima (Parliament)of 7April, will discharge judicial duties in Riga city Latgale suburb court.
Report of the Court Administration on performance in 2015
In accordance with the law “On Judicial Power”, the Council for the Judiciary listened to annual report of the Court Administration on its performance. EdvinsBalsevics, the Director of the Court Administration, informed about the most essential directions of work and results in 2015, and outlined the most important tasks of this year.
In 2016, the Court Administration, which ensures work of district (city) courts and regional courts, has set seven priorities of work: to continue implementation of security solutions in courts; increase of remuneration of judges and employees of courts; analysis of results of court reform and continuation of reform; new model of Court Information System and e-case project; the criminal case on disaster in Zolitude suburb of Riga; project of the European Social Fund for continuing education of employees of law enforcement authorities; ECLIprojects (single European Case-law Identifier).
Information prepared by
Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication of the Supreme Court
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