In his letter, President of Latvia underlines that ‘largely due to policy priorities of the responsible sector, until now national violence prevention policy has been fragmented and incoherent’. President Levits also points out that Domestic Violence Reduction Programme 2008−2011 has until now been the only policy document that deals solely with domestic violence prevention topics. ‘There is progress and good initiatives in several policy areas linked to this issue. However, horizontal cooperation is inefficient. Flaws need to be addressed to create a fully functioning violence prevention framework,’ says Egils Levits.
According to President, recommendations provided by public media contain specific and much needed measures, which require involvement of a number of responsible departments. They also indicate priorities and activities that need to be implemented in the long run. ‘I support prevention of violence through efficient community response and would like to urge policy makers in responsible sectors to agree on an institutional response model, which would lead to better penal policy and also rehabilitation and victim protection programmes,’ indicates Egils Levits.
President of Latvia calls on responsible authorities to come up with better governance model and agree on one managing authority tasked with policy coordination matters.