Dear Justices,
Dear participants,
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
Shared values based on fundamental rights, democracy and rule of law are the building blocks of our society and common identity. No democracy can thrive without independent courts that safeguard our fundamental rights and civil liberties. Rule of law has direct impact on our lives, it is a precondition for equality before the law and protection of individual rights, whereas the social legitimacy of courts enables them to fully perform their functions. Social legitimacy of courts depends on two factors. The performance or the quality of courts and judges, and the values underlying the court judgements. It is up to you to ensure the first one or the quality of your work, while the second one, the values underpinning the judgements, depends not only on judges, but also the legislature and the society as a whole. Judiciary follows and implements the shared values of the society that are broadly embedded in legislation. When applying the laws, judges must always have a clear understanding of underlying values, they have to be able to read between the lines of the law to be able to interpret these values through respective law. That is a one of the professional qualifications.
To a large extent, public opinion about courts is shaped by media. However, a detailed and honest reporting depends on the skill and ability to cover and interpret the events through the perspective of communication. That is why the court communication with public is important and essential. Only a judge can give an impartial account of how judgements are made and why judge’s actions or inaction was justified and necessary. Judges can communicate with public through two channels. Court judgements is the first, main and traditional channel, which has always been considered the only channel. Judges communicate through their judgments, through their rulings. However, modern societies require more. On top of judgement, a judge must also be able to explain the ruling to general public in a comprehendible manner. That is why both the quality of judgements and communication are equally important in creating the public trust and trust in judge. That is also the reason why most courts now employ their own in-house communication staff who can explain those judgements. Judges, of course, can also do it by themselves. A good example in this regard is the Constitutional Court judges of which explain judgements in simple terms by answering questions and giving a better understanding of why the ruling is as it is.
Accessing justice through courts is not only about the end result. More often it is the time dimension of justice that matters most. In 2019, the time dimension of court proceedings was a recurrent theme in public discussions. That is why we, indeed, need to revisit the complexity of criminal procedure which allows for delaying of trials for years. The abuse of criminal procedure to delay the proceedings is, in fact, caused by the rules themselves and, to some extent, also the way proceedings are managed. Minister for Justice has agreed to consider changes in criminal procedure to make the abuse of procedural rights in scope of criminal proceedings impossible, or at least ‘inefficient’. The other important issue is how judges manage proceedings. We should never forget that judges are the ones who manage the cases. Judges have the right to interfere when parties present their arguments, when they argue their case and start to delve into irrelevant issues. Every lawyer must know where to draw the line between relevance and irrelevance, especially judges. I would like to underline here that it is the duty of Latvian Judicial Training Centre to enhance relevance assessment methodologies. If it is obvious that a case with tens of files, especially if it is a criminal case, is already very much clear, judges should realise that there is not much sense in reviewing and hearing each little detail and argument to ensure a fair trial, as some may think. Just the contrary. It is like being unable to see the forest for the trees. There is a need to have methodology workshops where judges and all legal professionals are reminded how to conduct relevance assessment. This ability has a crucial effect on proceedings, their length and thus also the justice. I would also like to see judges being more aware of their role in steering and managing cases. Judges should give instructions to all parties and make all parties aware of how to present their positions and formulate questions in a way that gives the judge enough to act upon and build their judgement on. So, there are two issues that deserve closer attention – the ability of a judge to manage the proceedings and discriminate between relevant and irrelevant information.
I already mentioned delaying of proceedings. In comparison with other European Union members states the length of proceedings in Latvia is mostly reasonable, our proceedings are rather efficient, and we are ranked somewhere in the middle. Such protracted proceedings are not a common problem in Latvia in any way. Evaluation of Latvian justice system conducted by the European Commission also indicates that we should not think our justice system is failing or dysfunctional. It is an inaccurate image people have. Our judicial system is working well, and I think, dear colleagues, you should be proud of what has been achieved. We have managed to go from rather low ranking to average ranking among all EU member states. That, however, is, of course, still not enough because the reputation of courts is largely shaped by those protracted proceedings and I have a proposal on how to deal with this challenge. Judicial Council could create a working group tasked with analysing, let us say, 10 longest cases in Latvia. In other words, this working group would identify and analyse the 10 longest proceedings and establish the reasons for delays. Maybe delays have occurred due to legislation or the system. Maybe it is due to insufficient control on the part of judges, a case management problem. Be it as it may, all colleagues and not only colleagues, but also the society, should know what the causes of such delayed proceedings are. So, I suggest we create a working group that would analyse the ten longest proceedings in Latvia and give its opinion on what has caused these delays. Is it the system or maybe lack of appropriate qualification among judges?
We should also not forget about the internal independence of the judiciary because management skills are an integral part of such independence. I am talking about internal independence. We are not concerned about the external independence. Internal independence is an issue we should address more closely. We should individually and, of course, collectively reflect more on the internal independence. All systems have room for improvement. And judicial system must reflect on the improvements that need to be made in certain areas. We need to build united, strong, professional judicial system that can ensure the protection of common interests of the whole society.
Let me wish all my former colleagues and current cooperation partners a successful and productive conference!
