3 December, 2015
To ensure efficient and rational utilization of resources of the Supreme Court, the Council for the Judiciary, upon proposal of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, redistributed number of judges in structural units of the court – it increased number of judges in the Department of Administrative Cases for one judge, decreasing number of judges in the Chamber of Civil Cases.
Therefore, as from 1 January, from among 48 judges of the Supreme Court 36 will be judges of departments (including the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 10 judges in the Department of Administrative Cases, 17 judges in the Department of Civil Cases, and 8 judges in the Department of Criminal Cases), and 12 judges of Chambers.
Increase of number of judges in the Department of Administrative Cases was necessary, because of increase of workload of department due to increase of number of received cases, amendments to administrative procedure, expanding the competence of the department, for example, by increasing number of cases, which are appealed by filing an ancillary complaint, thus coming from the Administrative district court directly to the Department of Administrative Cases, not being heard by the regional court. Workload of judges of the department has also increased because of new procedure introduced in the Administrative Procedure Law, namely, that decision on progression of the cassation complaints and ancillary complaints is adopted by the judges of the Department, instead of the appellate instance court, as it had been previously.
In their turn, vacant offices of judges appeared in the Chamber of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court during preparation to reorganisation, and those positions will not be filled in future. The Chamber of Civil Cases will be liquidated on 31 December 2016.
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