26 April, 2016
Annual summary by the European Commission on results in field of justice, EU Justice Scoreboard, which has been elaborated since 2013, in report of this year approves progress made by Latvia in work of justice system.
InEU Justice Scoreboard, justice systems of 28 Member States of the European Union have been assessed in three aspects – efficiency of judicial system (length of proceedings), quality of judicial system (supervision and assessment) and independence of judicial system (questionnaires, budget, and authority of the Council for the Judiciary). Quantitative data for EU Justice Scoreboard has been provided by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice (CEPEJ), the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, European judicial co-operation networks, and group of national contacts of states.
Having discussed results of summary, the Council for the Judiciary concluded that strong points of Latvian court system are availability of judgements, electronic communication, quality and accounting system and gender equality.
However, weak points are budget allocated to courts, extrajudicial dispute resolution (mediation) and self-assessment of judges on their independence – in this aspect, Latvia has the lowest score.
As the most significant indicator, Ivars Bickovics, the Chairman of the Council for the Judiciary, pointed out the fact that Latvia, opposite to assessments often expressed in public space, is not among those Member States of the European Union, which have been recognised as problematic for investments.
The Council for the Judiciary recognisesEU Justice Scoreboard as a source of objective information, which helps to acknowledge strong and weak points, imperfections, necessary improvements and directions of developments of our court system.
See more here:
EU Justice Scoreboard 2016 (eng)
The Council for the Judiciary reviewed an issue in the sitting of 25 April.
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