The Supreme Court has compiled findings of the Senate’s Department of Criminal Cases and excerpts from decisions adopted in agreement proceedings in criminal cases.

Since November 3, 2022, when the relevant amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law entered into force, the procedure for appealing first-instance court rulings adopted in the agreement proceedings has been changed. Namely, these rulings can only be appealed before an appellate court to the extent specified in the Criminal Procedure Law. Before that, the rulings of first-instance courts in cases of this category could be appealed in cassation.

The compilation systematizes case-law findings of the Senate’s Department of Criminal Cases and extracts from rulings adopted between years 2022 and 2024.

The compilation has two parts. The first part includes summaries of decisions on refusal to initiate cassation proceedings. The second part systematizes Senate’s case-law findings expressed in rulings adopted when examining cases in cassation and when reviewing a decision that has come into effect anew due to a material or procedural violation of law (Chapter 63 of the Criminal Procedure Law). In this part, the insights expressed in the Senate's rulings are arranged, matching them with relevant provisions of the Criminal Law or the Criminal Procedure Law.

Hyperlinks are attached to rulings published in the Senate’s case-law archive on the website of the Supreme Court and in the database of anonymized decisions on the e-services portal of Latvian courts.

The compilation was prepared by Mg. iur. Nora Zvejniece, a legal research counsel to the Department of Criminal Cases.

 

Information prepared by

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

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: +371 67020396, +371 28652211