24 May, 2016

The Ministry of Justice familiarised the Council for the Judiciary with action planned by the ministry to achieve goals set in the Government Declaration of Maris Kucinskis in three main directions – economic growth, rule of law and security, professionalism and competence.

Working in these directions, the Ministry of Justice stipulated six priorities:  ensuring of legal environment stimulating development and competitiveness of business; improvement of business environment; abatement of shadow economy; internal security; protection of children’s rights, and international integration.  

To ensure legal environment stimulating development and competitiveness of business, reform of court catchment areas will be continued, equalizing load of courts and increasing efficiency of organisation of work of courts, and independence  of judges and courts will be strengthened and political influence regarding judicial careers, inter alia, review of salaries of judges and employees of courts, will be reduced.  The Ministry of Justice also considers as important specification of draft law of Procedure on Administrative Violation and advancement thereof in the Saeima (Parliament), implementation of Regulation on General Data Protection and defining and implementation of insolvency policy.  

To improve business environment, the Ministry of Justice has planned to facilitate processing of formalities related to procedures of the Register of Enterprises, to update cadastre information systems and to develop services related to registration of immovable property. 

To reduce shadow economy, possibility of implementation of mandatory notarial form for transactions with immovable property will be assessed.

To ensure internal security, main tasks include increase of capacity of personnel employed in institutions of enforcement of penalty and construction of a new prison in Liepaja. 

For protection of children’s right, it has been planned to facilitate and to increase efficiency of procedure of receipt of maintenance in minimum amount stipulated by the state.

Finally – in field of international integration, the Ministry of Justice will continue calculation of damages caused by occupation, on the ground of joint methodology of the Baltic States and assessing possible legal justification to file an international claim.

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