Today in Riga Castle the President of Latvia Valdis Zatlers met the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Ivars Bickovics. As the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court told, this was information meeting, in order to discuss results of work of year 2008 and priorities of work for current year.

During the meeting I. Bickovics informed the President of the State about work of the Supreme Court, that had been done during last year and about work that has been planned for the current year. Last year number of cases that entered and had been reviewed, increased, but remainder of cases, that were not reviewed also increased. The President of the State listened to opinion of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court about changes of legislation to be made in order to make reviewing of cases faster and easier.

Rhythm of work of the Supreme Court in circumstances of limited budget was also discussed. I. Bickovics drew attention of the President to the fact that the Supreme Court was forced to go over priorities of activity and reduce volume of activities that have been planned, however, the Chief Justice expressed hope that budget, given to the Supreme Court, will be such, so that the Supreme Court could fulfill its functions that are stated in legislation.

The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court admitted that economic breakdown will bring in its corrections in work of courts. Already at the end of last year in district courts there increased number of cases on default of obligations, on credits and leasings that were not paid on time. In the near future such cases will enter the Supreme Court also. The Chief Justice prognoses that in categories of criminal cases changes also are possible as a result of economic breakdown, namely, increase of number of economic crimes.

Enlarged analysis and evaluation of results of work of the Supreme Court is planned to give at the Plenum of the Supreme Court on March, 13.

 

 

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