The Supreme Court has published the collection of the 2021 rulings of the Senate on its website. As in the previous year, the collection does not contain full texts of rulings, but summaries of the most important rulings, which allow the reader to review concisely described factual circumstances of the case and learn about the findings of the Senate. Transparency serves comprehensibility, and thus the goal is to ensure that Senate's rulings serve a uniform understanding of the law.

Summaries are arranged by Supreme Court Department, grouped by categories of cases. The summary of the decision is accompanied by a title and key words, the findings of the Senate are highlighted.

In the introduction to the book, Aigars Strupišs, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, states that the ruling of the cassation court is a special court ruling. "The ruling of the Senate must combine, on the one hand, the depth and extension of reasoning in order to form an understanding of the application of legal provisions and make the necessary contribution to the development of legal thought, and, on the other hand, comprehensibility and accuracy to ensure clarity, authority and further application of Senate’s findings.”

At the same time, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court notes that the dynamic technological development and continuous social, economic, and geopolitical challenges oblige courts and other law enforcement authorities to carefully delve into every situation, take care of the observation of fundamental rights and be ready to develop the application of law, and if necessary, even to depart from previous case law. Of course, in the case of development or departing, there must exist reasoned communication in order to ensure the opportunity for the public to monitor and understand the development of the court's findings and the principle of the rule of law.

The widest collection of case law findings is published on the website of the Supreme Court in the Archive of Case Law Decisions. However, another means of ensuring an opportunity to get acquainted with the case law of the previous year is the yearbooks of rulings. The yearbooks contain rulings in which particularly important legal issues have been resolved, therefore, the interested persons have the opportunity to obtain information about the topical legal issues resolved in a given year as transparently as possible.

The book "Judgments and decisions of the Senate of the Republic of Latvia 2021" was prepared by the chairs of the Senate Departments Veronika Krūmiņa, Normunds Salenieks, Anita Poļakova and the consultants of the Division of Case Law and Research Annija Lazdiņa, Zinaida Indrūna and Kristīne Ivulāne. Editors are Anita Zikmane, the Head of the Division of Case Law and Research, and Liena Henke, the Language consultant. The publisher of the book is the Supreme Court.

The book will be received in printed form by Latvian courts, law faculties of universities, and the National Library. The electronic book is available free of charge on the website of the Supreme Court.

 

Information prepared by

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

E-mail: rasma.zvejniece@at.gov.lv, telephone: +371 67020396, +371 28652211