This year is the 10th anniversary, since the Administrative Procedure Law became effective and administrative courts commenced work. Appreciating this event, which is important for Latvian court system, the Supreme court has supported proposal of the Department of Administrative Cases to celebrate it with public conference “Courts in Legal Culture Space”, which will take place on Monday, April 14, in the Great Hall of the University of Latvia.

“Administrative courts have been the part of a court system. Legal culture influences both quality of litigation and public trust to the courts and the State. Taking into account public criticism in respect of courts and litigation, in our opinion, it is important to discuss influence of legal culture to litigation”, Veronika Krumina, the Chair of the Department of Administrative Cases, stresses.

Ivars Bickovics, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and Kristine Strada-Rozenberga, the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the UL, will open the conference.

Discussion on legal culture will be organised in three directions – relations between courts and politicians, relations between courts and media, and relations between courts and society.  

In discussion on relations between courts and politicians, Egils Levits, the judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, will outline interaction of these branches of power in judicial state. Janis Pleps, the senior adviser of the Legal Bureau of the Saeima (Parliament), the Head of the Department of Law Theory and History of the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia will provide historical review on this issue, and Lolita Cigane, the deputy of the 11th Saeima, and Gunars Kusins, the former head of the Legal Bureau of the Saeima, now – the judge of the Constitutional Court, in their turn will asses it in vision of today.   

IN the second part of the conference, which is dedicated to discussion about relations between courts and media, Anita Kovalevska, the judge of the Administrative regional court, will share her reflections on work of the judge, which still has been in the focus of attention of media and society. Martins Mits, the pro-rector of Riga Graduate School of Law, will analyse limits of court criticism in standards of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and Latvian practice. Irena Kucina, the deputy State secretary of the Ministry of Justice, will speak on importance of publishing of court rulings, and Anda Rozukalne, the Head of the Department of Communication Studies of Riga Stradina University, the Chair of the Latvian Association of Journalists, will assess quality of work of media, when reflecting work of courts.

The third discussion of the conference will also contain judge’s experience – vision of Jautrite Briede, the judge of the Supreme Court Department of Administrative Cases, the professor of the Faculty of Law of the UL, about judge’s work, which has been cross-criticised in the society, and Janis Ikstens, political scientist and the director of the UL Institute for Social and Political Research will analyse reasons of critical attitude of public towards courts. Baiba Broka, the Minister of Justice, will stress importance of quality of legal education, and Gatis Litvins, the director of the Notary Institute, will turn the attention to alternative methods of resolution of disputes as means of effectivisation of work of courts.  

Moderators of discussions are Veronika Krumina, the Chair of the Supreme Court Department of Administrative Cases, Dina Gailite, the editor-in-chief of the journal “Jurista Vards” (“Lawyer’s Word”) and Arvids Dravnieks, the director of the Public Law Institute.  

The Supreme Court organises the conference in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia and the journal “Jurista Vards”.

Judges and assistants to judges, deputies and the Legal Bureau of the Saeima, lecturers of higher educational institutions, media, advocates, notaries, bailiffs, prosecutors, representatives of ministries and other public administration institutions, non-governmental organisations and other interested persons are invited to participate in the conference.

 

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