18 February, 2014
On April 1, amendments to Section 25027 of the Civil Procedure Law will become effective, and in accordance with those previous procedure of appeal in cases on small claims shall be changed, replacing appeal under cassation procedure by appeal under appellate procedure.
To ensure faster review of civil cases and not to overload regional courts, the Board of Justice supported the proposal of the Ministry of Justice to establish procedure of review of small claims that would be different from general appellate proceedings.
Firstly, different procedure envisages implementation of leave to appeal, determining criteria admitting review of small claims in appellate instance. Secondly, for the purpose of procedural economy it is envisaged to review small claims in written proceedings.
Amendments to the Civil Procedure Law, which determine peculiarities of review of cases regarding small claims in appellate instance, must be adopted by the Saeima (the Parliament) before April 1, when previous amendments to the law, according to which instance for appealing against these cases was changed, shall become effective.
The issue was reviewed in the sitting of the Board of Justice on February, 17
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