28 April, 2023
On Friday, April 28, the Judicial Council decided to introduce a system for determining the degree of complexity of cases or the case-weighting model in district (city) courts, which will be used for workload analysis and monitoring in first instance courts in Latvia, as well as for planning of resources and vacant positions in the judicial system.
The case-weighting model provides for assessing the degree of complexity of cases by allocating points. The Court Administration will carry out technical adjustment of the Court Information System to ensure the practical use of the model in courts. The model was developed by the Working Group on Strengthening the Efficiency of the Courts established by the Court Administration.
Furthermore, the Judicial Council discussed the issue of the workload of the Collegium of Criminal Cases of the Riga Regional Court. The Judicial Council decided not to announce a competition for the temporary replacement of the judges of the Collegium of Criminal Cases, but to make active use of the currently available solutions to reduce the workload in the Riga Regional Court.
The Judiciary Council appointed Ilze Celmiņa, the judge of the Riga Regional Court's Collegium of Civil Cases, as the head of the Latvian Judges Conference taking place on May 19, 2023 entitled "Right to a fair trial: the interaction of courts of all instances", and Madara Plepe, the judge of the Kurzeme District Court, was appointed the secretary of the Conference.