Kalvis Torgans, the senator of the Supreme Court, professor, Dr.habil.iur., Janis Rozenbergs, sworn advocate, prof., Dr.iur., and Gunars Aigars, the deputy of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Chair of the Chamber of Civil Cases have prepared new commentaries to Civil Procedure Law. The book of commentaries published by public joint-stock company "Tiesu namu agentura" became available to readers in July.  

The first part of commentaries to Civil Procedure Law published covers general standards of Civil Procedure Law, it is, articles of Chapters 1-28; text of Articles 1-232 is published in the book. Other legal standards are also used for commentaries, taking into account amendments announced until the 26th of May, 2011.  

As Kalvis Torgans, the scientific editor of commentaries indicates in foreword to the book, significant amendments were made in Civil Procedure Law since it was adopted, eliminating issues that were unclear initially. Relatively clear and stable judicature was formed.  However, understanding and application of legal standards without extensive explanation is not easy, application of several articles in practice creates disagreements and mistakes. So commentaries are really much needed.

Since 2006, when commentaries to Civil Procedure Law were published last time, not only understanding about law, interpretation and application has changed, but also new generation of lawyers appeared in jurisprudence and legal work related to civil law disputes, and this generation studied law in independent Latvia or Western countries and it doesn’t have to “re-orientate itself”. That’s why, as the senator Torgans indicates, there is no need to expand comparison of enforced civil procedural standards with previous legal regulation. The main goal of commentaries is to lighten application of legal standards, indicating and explaining possible problematic issues.  However, commentaries of separate standards also include doctrinal conclusions that may enable strengthening of rule of law and integration of Latvia into European legal space.

In time of preparation of commentaries five draft laws of operating amendments to Civil Procedure Law were in the Saeima (the Parliament) in different readings to be reviewed; different drafts of amendments to the law have been reviewed also in the Cabinet of Ministers and in work groups of the Ministry of Justice. However, waiting for adoption of them in final wording, the publishing of the book would be put off indefinitely, so authors decided to publish the book, not waiting for decisions of legislator. However, not to decrease topicality of the book, draft laws of amendments submitted to the Saeima and available in the Saeima’s home page related to this part of Civil Procedure Law commented, are taken into account. These possible amendments, also new wordings of legal standards and separate explanations of them are indicated in editor’s notes beside correspondent article of Civil Procedure Law. Having evaluated amendments announced already, publisher indicates that they do not impact content of commentaries.

At the end of the book list of sources used in comments is published, in which complete information about these sources may be found, inter alia, legal standards and list of all amendments made in them.

Authors and publisher hope that these commentaries to Civil Procedure Law will not only help to find answers to unclear issues of interpretation and application of separate legal norms, but also will start new traditions in creation of books of commentaries.  

It should be noted that preparation of comments was not easy task for authors, whose routine work load is big. The senator Torgans prepared this book during his annual vacation, and he also used his unpaid vacation.

 

Information prepared by

Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication of the Supreme Court

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