Client inquiry has started this week in the Supreme Court and it will continue until the end of October. Its aim is to clarify customer assessment of organisation and quality of work of the Supreme Court.

Questionnaires and boxes to place filled questionnaires are located in the court lobby, in corridors beside court rooms, as well as in chanceries of Chambers and the Senate. Each client visiting the Supreme Court is kindly asked to fill in the questionnaire of court work assessment. Information submitted will be used in summary only and answers will be confidential.

Court clients are divided into two groups: society – participants of cases, witnesses, victims and others, and lawyers – advocates, prosecutors, assistants to advocates and attorneys. Questionnaires for each group are similar, however they differ a bit. Lawyers will receive questionnaires also electronically, via centralised e-lists of Prosecutor’s Office and the Board of Advocates.

Clients are asked to evaluate work of the Supreme Court in general and in different aspects (for example, terms of review of cases, procedural documentation, availability of information about proceedings, etc.), organisation of work of the Supreme Court (working and reception hours, information about materials of the case and advancement, availability of rulings in terms established, etc.), work of court employees (answering phone calls, kindness, competency, precision of answers, etc.), documentation of the Supreme Court (well timed delivery, apprehensibility, spelling, precision of court hearing protocol) and its rulings (argumentation, language, case-law, etc.). Clients are also invited to give recommendations to improve work of the Supreme Court.

At the end of 2010, inquiring court clients as method of measuring court work was approbated by the Latvian Judicial Training Centre (LJTC) within framework of the project “Quality of Proceedings in Latvia”. The Supreme Court was not included among eight pilot courts running the inquiry, so it runs deeper inquiry about services offered by the Supreme Court on its own.

As it is indicated in research of LJTC, usual methods of measuring quality of court work in Latvia are statistical data about advancement of cases and number of rulings. Although it is necessary and essential reflection of court work as well, but orientating on analysis of statistical data only, partial and incomplete vision about quality of court work is obtained. It is impossible to improve court work in full value without clarification of evaluation of court clients. It is very important now, when courts of Latvia, inter alia, the Supreme Court, are glutted with case files and proceedings take long time, so internal reserves are to be found to make court work more effective.

To make practical improvements in court work, it is more important to clarify concrete assessments and recommendations from persons who were in real contact with the court rather than clarify general public opinion about trust to judiciary. Research of LJTC showed that court clients – parties of proceeding and lawyers – evaluate work of the court better than society in general: SKDS inquiry shows trust of approximately 33% of society to courts; however, research of LJTC shows trust of 79% of clients to courts, and 74% of lawyers responded that they trust court system in Latvia.

 

 

Information prepared by

Head of the Division of Communications of the Supreme Court Rasma Zvejniece

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: 67020396, 28652211