At the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court held on 15 June, Edite Vernusa was elected to the office of the Chair of the Department of Civil Cases, and Ineta Ozola was elected to the office of the Chair of the appellate instance – the Chamber of Civil Cases.

31 judges participated in voting, and both candidates received 27 “for” votes, 1 “against” vote, and three judges refrained from voting.

Length of service of Edite Vernusa in court system is 25 years. She had been the judge of the Riga city Centre district court and Riga regional court, since 1999 – the judge in the Supreme Court. E.Vernusa has been the judge in the Department of Civil Cases since 2005, and since November 2014 she has discharged duties of the Chair of the Department. The judge acquired degree of the Master of Law.

Colleagues from the Department of Civil Cases, when nominating Edie Vernusa to the office of the Chair of the department, pointed out her long experience of work, high professionalism and experience in the administrative work. Since she has discharged duties of the Chair of the department, she has successfully found solution of organisation of work to accelerate circulation of case files, so that at least refusals to accept the case for review under cassation procedure would be provided as soon as possible. Ability of Edite Vernusa to manage currently the largest structural unit of the Supreme Court and personal characteristics, which promote ability to agree on joint solutions regarding cases, is also evaluated.   

Ineta Ozola has worked as a judge since 2000. She had been the judge of the first instance court in Jelgava court and Riga city Centre district court, holding the office of the deputy Chair of the court, and she had worked in Riga regional court.  Since 2010 I. Ozola has been the judge of the Chamber of Civil Cases of the Supreme Court.

When agreeing to be the Chair of the Chamber of Civil Cases, Ineta Ozola recognised that it would be short, but difficult stage of work, because, as it is known, having implemented reform of the Supreme Court, the Chamber of Civil Cases will discontinue its existence on 31 December 2016.

New heads of structural units had to be elected, because previous Chairs, having reached maximum age to hold judge’s office established in the law “On Judicial Power”, terminated execution of these duties – Zigmants Gencs – on 19 November 2014, in the Department of Civil Cases, and Gunars Aigars – on 31 October 2014, in the Chamber of Civil Cases. 

In accordance with Section 44 of the law “On Judicial Power”, Chairs of departments of the Supreme Court are elected by the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court, observing principle of equal gender representation. The term of office of Chairs of departments of the Supreme Court is five years. While the Chamber of Civil Cases exists in the Supreme Court, the same conditions refer to election of the Chair thereof.  

 

Information prepared by

Rasma Zvejniece, the Head of the Division of Communication of the Supreme Court

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: 7020396, 28652211