A new institution – the general meeting of judges of the court chamber of the Supreme Court and the department of the Senate is defined in the law “On Judicial Power”.

On April 3, the Saeima (Parliament) supplemented the law with the additional Article 491 “General meeting of judges of the Court chamber and the department of the Senate” stating that it is a collegiate institution which is convened by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to settle current law issues. He presides at the general meeting of the Court chamber and the department of the senate, as well.

The General meeting of judges of the Court chamber and the department of the Senate discusses current issues regarding interpretation of law standards to ensure uniformity in the application of the law standards. The conclusion of the general meeting on the issues of interpretation and application of law standards is made in the form of a decision and is published.

Till now the law stated that current issues on interpretation of law standards are discussed by the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court. However, taking into account that the Plenary Session is the general meeting of all the judges of the Supreme Court, a discussion of specific issues might be more purposeful in a general meeting of judges of the department and the chamber of the respective field of law. The Supreme Court already had the practice that the summaries of court practice prepared by the Division of Case-law and specialists regarding the practice of reviewing separate categories of cases were discussed in the respective general meeting of the senators of the Senate. The Division of Case-law notes that such discussion of the results of summaries and proposals increases the authority of the work and shows its topicality.

 

Information prepared by

Head of the Division of Communications of the Supreme Court Rasma Zvejniece

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