In the last week of 2010 collection of decisions and verdicts of the Senate of the Supreme Court for year 2009 appeared, published by the Courthouse Agency.

It took one year to prepare summary of rulings implemented by the Courthouse Agency in cooperation with the Supreme Court, as, notwithstanding former practice, publishers came back to initial form of publishing that had existed in 1996, namely, all the most important rulings of Senate departments for 2009 are published in one collection.

As Ivars Bickovics, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court indicates in the foreword, creation of this joint collection of rulings mostly was stated by economic reasons. Unlike publication of rulings of the Constitutional Court that is stated in the Law “On Constitutional Court”, rulings of the Senate of the Supreme Court are published only on initiative of the court and publishers and funds raised by them.

Despite the fact that rulings of the Senate become more available in Internet environment, allowing public to get acquainted with case-law much faster and in greater volume, importance of court rulings summaries being published doesn’t decrease. Involving senators and other lawyers into this work there have been selected rulings of essential importance both in uniform interpretation and application of legal standards and promotion of case-law coherence, research and development. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court stresses that all court conclusions included in collection of rulings of The Senate published are the case-law.

In process of creation of conjoint collection of Senate rulings, selection of rulings to be published was especially scrupulous, as it was necessary to take into account not only limited volume of edition, but also accumulative number of cases reviewed in the court. 40 rulings of the Department of Civil Cases, 38 rulings of the Department of Criminal Cases and 35 rulings of the Department of Administrative Cases of the Senate are published in the collection. However, it makes only 4.3% of total number of cases reviewed in the Senate in 2009.

In addition to rulings published in the collection, different indices are included in chapter of each department: Index of concepts interpreted by the court; Alphabetical index of concepts; Index of institutions, Index of legal standards; Index of theses; Index of judicature and case-law; Index of other sources and Index of rulings published according to numbers of cases.

The chapter of the Department of Civil Cases was prepared by the senator Edite Vernusa and Zinaida Indruna, the adviser of the Case-Law Division. The chapter of the Department of Criminal Cases was prepared by the senator Peteris Dzalbe and Nora Magone, the assistant to the senator, and the chapter of the Department of Administrative Cases was prepared by Veronika Krumina, the Chair of the Department and Kristine Aperane, the assistant to the senator.

Rulings of the Department of Civil Cases are grouped in 11 categories of cases. The most part consists of rulings in cases related to labour relations, as in this category the number of cases reviewed in 2009 doubled. The second biggest category of cases in the collection is related to application of civil procedural legal standards. Rulings about meeting of liabilities in legal way are divided into separate category. Including mark “Case-law changes” is a new practice.

Rulings of the Department of Criminal Cases are divided into three parts: issues about application of Common Section and Special Section of Criminal Procedural Law and issues of application of Criminal Procedural Law. In chapter of issues about application of Common Section of Criminal Procedural Law rulings about final punishment establishment principles, application of conditional punishment, being in state of necessary defence, understanding of voluntary rejection from commitment of the crime, and also about issues related to complicity are included. The most rulings related to issues of application of Criminal Procedural Law contain issues about termination of criminal proceedings in the court due to limit, content of agreement protocol, possibility to sign agreement of settlement, compensation of moral harm in cases about traffic accidents and other issues. In some rulings issues related to understanding and application of terms of the Article 499 of Criminal Procedural Law both in the court of the first instance and in the court of appeal.

Rulings of the Department of Administrative Cases are summarised in five chapters: about rulings and actual actions of the State Revenue Service, municipalities and other institutions, about review of application or case competence in administrative procedure and subjective rights of person to submit a sue in the court, and also about other issues in field of administrative procedural law. In collection there are included cases, in which the Department of Administrative Cases has expressed essential conclusions in relation to issues of privatisation, construction law, public purchases, compensations paid due to illegitimate actual action or administrative deed of institution, and other issues. There has been also published the ruling of the department, which, in opinion of compilers of collection, received the most public response, namely, the response that it is not allowed to submit application in the court in Latgallian language.

Year 2009 was significant in context of law of the European Union, as the response was received from the European Court of Justice to prejudicial answer asked by the Department of the Administrative Cases of the Senate in 2008. This answer related to interpretation of the EU legal standards in field of customs. Ivars Bickovics the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court indicates that in interpretation and application of the EU legal standards and international standards, judicature of the Supreme Court implements more extended international task – it creates law that goes beyond national borders.


 

Information prepared by

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

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: 7020396, 28652211