24 May, 2016
To promote compliance of Latvian case-law with standards of the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Council for the Judiciary considered it necessary to improve judges’ knowledge and skills in issues related to application and control of a security measure – detention – and quality of reasoning of decisions.
Additional steps for improvement of professional qualification of judges in relation to application and control of pre-trial detention in criminal proceedings will be included in the programme funded by the European Union.
The Ministry of Justice, having analysed Latvian cases before the European Court of Human Rights, which have been related to determination of length and control of pre-trial detention, pointed out problems related to quality of reasoning and arguments of decisions on imposition and prolongation of pre-trial detention. Turning the attention of Chairs of courts to this fact, the ministry sent a newsletter about case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in cases on application of pre-trial detention; great attention has been paid to improvement of qualification of investigation judges within regular trainings carried out for judges by Latvian Judicial Training Centre. However, observing urgency of issue regarding decisions on pre-trial detention, the Ministry of Justice had asked the Council for the Judiciary to support necessity for additional steps to be taken to improve professional qualification of judges to decide cases of these categories.
The decision was adopted by the Council for the Judiciary at the sitting of 23 May.
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