On 18 February, President of Latvia Egils Levits, who is currently in Munich at the annual security conference, announced that amendments to the Law on Ports will not be signed into law for another two months. President signed the announcement from Germany using safe digital signature. It is the first time that a president of Latvia has invoked Article 72 of Satversme to announce his formal decision while being abroad and certified it with a digital signature.
President’s announcement of his decision to postpone the enactment of amendments to the Law on Ports was published in special edition of the official journal ‘Latvijas Vēstnesis’ (35B) on 19 February. President’s decision means that Central Election Committee will now wait for at least the tenth of signatures of voting population to be collected, as required by the Article 72 of Satversme.
This is the third instance in Egils Levits’ presidency when he is being formally approached by at least a third of MPs pleading President to halt signing of a bill into law. Previous Saeima minority requests asked President Levits to suspend proposals to amend two laws regarding dissolution of municipal councils. Better rules were challenged on 23 December 2019.
This bill has also been stopped upon request of at least third of Saeima MPs (36), therefore, according to Satversme, President of Latvia had to postpone its enactment. If a formal request is made by at least a third of MPs, President cannot ignore it and must act upon it – even if his position is different. These are special constitutional powers granted to the Saeima minority. President of Latvia must respect opposition powers defined in Satversme and follow the procedures laid down in Article 72.