21 June, 2021
The Judicial Council conceptually supported the reform of the in-service training system for judges and prosecutors by establishing a single training centre.
The Judicial Council supports the institutional model set out in the concept prepared by the Ministry of Justice, which envisages that the training centre will be established as a derived legal entity under public law. Whereas, its operating model envisages that the strategic lines of the training centre are determined, supervised and evaluated by the Judicial Council, but for the coordination of daily work a supervisory board is formed – a collegial institution consisting of representatives from courts, prosecutor's office, from fields of internal affairs and justice, and from academia. It is envisaged that the head of the centre will be appointed and removed from office by the Cabinet of Ministers upon the proposal of the Judicial Council.
The Judicial Council supported the principles set out in the concept for setting up the training centre. The most important of them are: sufficient involvement of the judiciary in the planning and defining the content of training; the relevance of the form and content of training to the real needs of society and the judiciary, while ensuring sufficient flexibility in both the use and content of different training methods; balanced supply of knowledge and skills (theory/practice/experience/values); consistency and autonomy of the training model (ability to work without intermediaries); independence of the training budget (training budget as part of the courts budget); application of the experience of the Latvian Judicial Training Centre.
It is planned to implement the reform of the in-service training system for judges and prosecutors by the end of 2024. It will be implemented by the Court Administration in cooperation with the Prosecutor General's Office, the Supreme Court and the Ministry of the Interior, and the implementation will be monitored by the Ministry of Justice in cooperation with the Judicial Council.
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