Silovs quits

RIGA - The question to be asked by Latvian citizens is this: Why do Saeima members enjoy immunity from prosecution if they have done something that is illegal? Saeima member Juris Silovs (Harmony Center), who has been charged with fraud, has relinquished his Saeima member’s mandate, and has informed the Presidium of this decision, reports news agency LETA.
Silovs’ party co-member and chairman of the Saeima Mandate, Ethics and Submissions Committee, Vitalijs Orlovs, said that in doing so, Silovs wished to take political responsibility and not hide behind his immunity.

Harmony Center’s Saeima group said that Silovs had stated in his petition that he wished to relinquish his Saeima member’s immunity so he could legally defend himself and enable his Saeima group to continue work at full strength.
Stopini Council member Viktors Jakovlevs was next on Harmony Center’s ticket for the 10th Saeima elections, and he has already acknowledged that he is ready to take Silovs’ place.

TV3 program ‘Neka personiga’ (Nothing Personal) reported previously that Silovs had been charged with large-scale fraud, and the hearings will open on April 26. This means that the Saeima would have had to vote on lifting Silovs’ immunity.
The case goes back to the time when Silovs was chairman of the Garkalne Region Council. He smashed his brand-new official car, a Toyota Land Cruiser, that the council had bought for 30,000 lats (42,800 euros), into a tree. It appears that Silovs was intoxicated at the time of the accident, though he later lied to the police, claiming that his wife was behind the wheel.
The insurers would not have covered the repairs to the car if they knew that the driver was drunk. Witnesses told police that Silovs’ wife was not in the automobile and only arrived at the scene later.

The badly-damaged car was concealed from the public. Silovs had arranged that the dealership give him another Toyota Land Cruiser, exactly like his original one, while the damaged car was being repaired; even the license plates were similar so that no one would notice. The repairs were covered with the region council’s money, and this would have probably never come to light if not for a region council official who accidentally discovered the badly damaged car in the backyard of Wess Motors, and took a photograph of it. The official turned to the Corruption Prevention Bureau, which launched an investigation into the matter.

The case was forwarded to the Economic Police, which opened a criminal case on June 14 last year. Silovs and his wife were charged with large-scale fraud. If convicted, they may be sentenced to five to 13 years in jail, or a fine of up to 27,000 lats.
Politicians able to hide behind ‘immunity’ of office, as is the case in Italy with its Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is just another form of corruption in Latvian society.