The Constitutional Court initiated the case about procedure of formation of the budget of President’s Chancery, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court, the Government Control and Ombudsman’s Office.

The case is initiated to application of the Government Control, in which there has been stated that at present the Cabinet can change requirements about the budget of independent institutions without approval of institutions. The Government Control considers this procedure to be incongruous to principle of division of power and it endangers financial and functional independence of independent institutions.

The Supreme Court supports the application of the Board of the Government Control and believes that special status should be established for independent institutions and financial independence should be provided. On October 8, 2009, the Plenum of the Supreme Court was summoned, during which it was decided to call Saeima and the Cabinet to provide financial analysis of the budget of the Supreme Court in the same procedure as it was established for financial analysis of the budget of Saeima, it is, to state that application for the budget can not to be amended before submitting of the draft law of the budget to Saeima without agreement of the submitter of application.

The Supreme Court believes that reduce of the budget of the Supreme Court without argumentation and agreement is contrary to the main Law of the State. Such action is not to be allowed in democratic and legal State.

The Constitutional Court initiated the case about conformity of Part 5 of Paragraph 19 of the Law about Budget and Financial Management, Part 2 of the Paragraph 44 of the Law on Government Control and Part 2 of the Paragraph 19 of the Law on Ombudsman to Paragraph 1, 83 and 87 of the Satversme. The standards appealed state that application of the budget that is being submitted by the President’s Chancery, the Supreme Court, the Constitutional Court and Ombudsman’s Office before submitting draft law of the budget to the Cabinet, is not allowed to be changed without agreement of the submitter of application.

The Constitutional Court will evaluate, what is the principle of division of the power and whether it has been breached or not.

The Saeima is also called until March 18, 2010 to provide written answer with layout of actual circumstances of the case and legal ground. The term of preparation of the case is established for June 18, 2010.

 

 


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