On Friday, 11 October, the Minister of Justice Janis Bordans met with chairpersons of courts, in order to discuss current events of the judiciary system.
Within the framework of the event in his speech to chairpersons of court the Minister of Justice drew particular attention to the effect of communication and information availability to public trust to judicial power: “In our dynamic informative space every judge has an obligation to clearly and timely explain the argumentation of decisions. The court is not isolated from changes outside the premises of the court, therefore we have to be able to keep up with the times and to adapt to the current situation, including to learn to communicate with media and public, therefore I am satisfied about involvement of each judge in the explanation of decisions. In particular, I would like to compliment the example of good practice of recent time in the person of the judge of Riga Regional Court Valdis Vazdikis showing an excellent example on the communication of the court with media and inhabitants. Each such positive example helps to improve the image of the judicial power in general.”
At the same time, the Minister of Justice emphasized that availability of a timely and understandable information, including readiness of judges to provide explanations within the framework of the law on their decisions, is a pre-condition for the public to trust judicial power and for the judicial power to regain its prestige in the public eyes.
During the meeting the Minister of Justice and Chairperson of Riga Regional Court Daiga Vilsone recommended chairpersons and judges of courts to pay attention to situations, when any of the parties involved in the case directly or indirectly tries to make a pressure, as well as asked not to be afraid to identify and prevent such cases without delay.
Also the current projects were discussed during the meeting, where active work is currently being performed at in the Ministry of Justice, the Council for the Judiciary and the Saeima - establishment of the Court of Economic Cases, procedure for recruitment of the candidates of judges, cancellation of immunity in the administrative violation cases, amendments to the Law On the Judicial Power and Judicial Disciplinary Liability Law, amendments to the Advocacy Law etc. being reviewed by the Saeima .
New changes in remuneration of judiciary employees were discussed among other things. Like it was mentioned before, the Ministry of Justice has found a funding from internal resources and will transfer 2.45 million euros in 2020 for increase of monthly salaries of employees of courts on average by 10%, in order to reach previously planned 85 % of the group of monthly salaries within the framework of the salary reform for judiciary employees.