Continuing tradition of publishing the bulletin, which was commenced last year, the Supreme Court prepared and published the second edition of the bulletin, which will be delivered to all Latvian courts, other institutions of judiciary, as well as in libraries and higher educational institutions in nearest future.

The first part of the bulletin is dedicated to legal practice, and the most topical conclusions are given by all departments of the Senate.

Zigmants Gencs, the Chair of the Department of Civil Cases of the Senate, informs on compilation of case-law of the Senate in cases about individual labour disputes, which are particularly topical in time, when number of civil cases arising from work legal relations increases sharply in courts of all instances. The Department of Civil Cases of the Senate has also published judgment proclaimed on the 19th of January, 2011, where issue has been solved on extension of concept of employee to member of the board of joint-stock company and rights of joint-stock company to recall member of the board, who is pregnant, from her post. This ruling is considered to be important in Latvian case-law not only because it raised extensive discussions, but also because the Department of Civil Cases addressed the European Court of Justice for the first time asking to provide prejudicial ruling on understanding of “employee” status in the EU law.

Veronika Krumina, the Chair of the Department of Administrative Cases of the Senate, has prepared report on cases related to civil service relations, reviewed in the Senate in 2010. It contains the most important conclusions of the Department of Administrative Cases of the Senate in administrative cases heard, which were related to service in state administration, as well as conclusions are made, which would be useful not only to lawyers, but to every civil servant working in state administration.    

In his turn, Peteris Dzalbe, the Chair of the Department of Criminal Cases of the Senate, provides insight into case-law summary on compensation of moral harm in criminal proceedings. Voluminous study, in which more that two hundreds rulings of courts of all instances are analysed, has been carried out by the doctor of law, professor Valentija Liholaja, in cooperation with the Department of Criminal Cases and the Division of Case-law. Authors of this research developed tentative guidelines for possible amounts of compensation of moral harm, which have been published in this bulletin as well.

Decision adopted in meeting of Chairs of departments of the Senate about providing an individual right to access to the court, if dispute exists on jurisdiction of a case for review in civil procedure or administrative procedure. 

In the second part of the bulletin, conclusions of senators are published, which were made, when reporting at different legal conferences or speaking in international events. Dr.iur Jautrite Briede has prepared article about validity of administrative act, written on the grounds of report read at international conference at the University of Daugavpils. Report of Dr.iur. Janis Neimanis “Importance of norm given for inspection in review of case and opinion on non-compliance of norm to the Constitution: assessment criteria and breadth of substantiation” read at the conference of the Constitutional Court, is also published in the bulletin. Performance of Veronika Krumina at the 11th International Conference of Supreme Courts, which took place in Lucknow, India, is interesting,   as the senator speaks on national rights in field of children’s protection and child-friendly court.

Unlike other years, public report on work of the Supreme Court in 2010 is not published in separate edition, but included as a chapter in the bulletin. It contains information from reports of Ivars Bickovics, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and heads of structural units at the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court, as well as statistical data, which characterise work of the Court in 2010.

The first bulletin of the Supreme Court published in November, 2010, was dedicated to the international conference “Judicature of the Supreme Court and its Role in Development of Legal Thought in Latvia”, and thus the Supreme Court restored historical tradition to publish legally informative and educational issue that had been published for thirty five years until 1993. The Supreme Court has planned to publish the bulletin twice a year.

 

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