11 June, 2020
On June 11, amendments to the Law “On Judicial Power” come into force, which expand the bases of extraordinary assessment of the professional activity of judges. An extraordinary assessment shall be carried out by the Judicial Qualification Committee not only when deciding on the transfer or replacement of a judge, but also on the basis of a decision of the Judicial Disciplinary Committee, and it shall also be possible for chairs of courts to do so if conditions of professional activity have been identified which are linked to significant shortcomings in the organization of work or insufficient knowledge of a judge, which is an obstacle to the quality of the proceedings.
A chair of a district (city) court may initiate an extraordinary assessment of the professional activity of judges of a respective court, a chair of a regional court may initiate an extraordinary assessment of the professional activity of district (city) court judges and judges of regional courts, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court may initiate an extraordinary assessment of judges of all courts.
By balancing the principle of the independence of a judge with the powers of a chair of a court, the Law stipulates that at first the Judicial Qualification Committee decides whether the proposal to conduct an extraordinary assessment is justified. If the Judicial Qualification Committee finds the received proposal of the chair of the court justified, it shall perform an extraordinary assessment of the professional activity of a judge.
Information prepared by
Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication of the Supreme Court
E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: +371 67020396, +371 28652211