Justice system imperils EU membership

  • 2001-05-03
  • Nick Coleman
RIGA - A new report on human rights in Latvia roundly condemns the state of the country's justice system. The report, released last week by the Riga-based Center for Human Rights and Ethnic Studies, highlights severe backlogs in the court system, which are causing long periods of pre-trial detention, especially for minors.

"We are witnessing the collapse of the judicial system," said Nils Muiznieks, the center's director. The consequences for Latvia could be severe, he said.

"If things continue as they have, it will hamper Latvia's accession to the European Union. It's a question of whether there is the political will to guarantee a strong, independent judiciary. Money can either be spent on the judicial system, or on compensation to people who complain to the European Court of Human Rights, but the taxpayer will pay either way."

The report also highlights activity by both Latvian and Russian extremists; a result of ineffective integration policies, said Muiznieks.

The problems in the justice system center on Riga. Delays at the regional court, where cases are now being scheduled for 2003, are due to Parliament's failure to grant funding for sufficient numbers of judges, said Muiznieks.

As of last October, there were 1,721 people in pre-trial detention at Riga Central Prison. Of these, 541 had been held for more than a year.

At the end of the year 43.7 percent of Latvia's prison population of 8,831 were awaiting trial. Of the 327 minors in prison, 59 percent were awaiting trial, some for more than two years. Those who appeal against a court judgment continue to remain in their cells 23 hours a day and most are denied contact with the outside world.

From April the number of judges at Riga Regional Court will increase by three. The court is due to move to new premises on Abrene Street next February.

One development praised in the report was the widening of access to the Constitutional Court, which it describes as Latvia's most progressive, but under-utilized judicial body. The court can now be used by private individuals, rather than just the president, selected MPs and some state bodies. Individuals can only ask the court to establish a legal norm however; they then have to turn to a regular court again to seek redress.

Another positive development was the allocation of 40,000 lats ($65,000) in state funding for training judges. Previously, foreign donors had paid for all such training.

Leonards Pavils, press spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, acknowledged the seriousness of the situation at Riga Regional Court but said the forthcoming changes would help.

The year 2000 saw little progress toward the implementation of the government's social integration policy, said the report. The well-publicized activities of the National Bolshevik movement were just one symptom of the divisions that need to be addressed in Latvian society, said Muiznieks.

"Extremism will be an increasing problem for Latvia," he said. "Inaction in the realm of integration is the cause."

Other extremist groups that made their presence felt in 2000 included the Latvian nationalist Perkonkrusts (Thundercross) movement. The racist and anti-Semitic newspaper Latvietis Latvija, which is sold freely in kiosks throughout Riga, rallied support for Perkonkrusts members on trial for attempting to blow up Riga's Victory Monument, said the report.

A neo-Nazi youth group in the port city of Liepaja also published violently racist and anti-Semitic articles in its Patriot newsletter. One article compared Jews to ticks and suggested that both should be burned.

A neo-Nazi Russian group – the Latvian Regional Organization for Russian Unity – also published a newsletter in which an anonymous author wrote: "If anyone wants to fight Russians they need not go far. We are already here!"

The report welcomed plans to create a social integration fund to support integration-related projects, but it blamed Parliament for delays in establishing the fund. The 200,000 lats the Cabinet earmarked for the fund in November are unlikely to materialize, it said, because of the large hole it would leave in the 2001 discretionary budget.

But Peteris Elferts, the parliamentary secretary for the Foreign Ministry, said the idea that integration is at a standstill is "ridiculous."

"Integration programs, such as citizenship and language programs, cultural and educational programs, science and research, have been allocated 11 million lats this year," he said.

"This week the parliamentary committee responsible for legislation will look at proposed amendments to the Law on Social Integration and it will be adopted by the end of this parliamentary session, probably on June 21."

The list of private-sector professions subject to the state language law, published in November, was generally proportionate and conformed with the legitimate interest of the public, according to the report. Only the inclusion of taxi drivers is "difficult to justify," it said. But a number of aspects of Latvian legislation are incompatible with the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which Latvia has yet to ratify.

Prisoners have been hit particularly hard by the rule that state and municipal institutions may only receive documents in Latvian. The report found that courts and other state institutions systematically returned correspondence to prisoners who had written in Russian, despite the absence in prisons of translation services or free language instruction.