President backs legal rehabilitation of Soviet psychiatry abuse victims

RIGA - President Edgars Rinkevics believes that the Saeima needs to adopt a political declaration that would legally rehabilitate people who were wrongly detained and incarcerated in Soviet-era mental institutions as a form of repression and would recognize that these people were politically persecuted and wrongly convicted.

As the president's spokesman Martins Dregeris told LETA, Rinkevics met with Justice Minister Inese Libina-Egnere (New Unity) at Riga Castle on Monday to discuss the issue, among other matters.

The president and the justice minister discussed the need for the Saeima to adopt a political declaration that would reinstate people who were wrongly held in Latvian or Soviet mental institutions as a result of Soviet reprisals.

The officials also discussed current developments in the work of the Ministry of Justice, including the possibilities for strengthening the instruments available to state authorities to prevent illegal cartel agreements in public procurement, the operation of the new Liepaja prison, and plans for the construction of a new women's prison.

The discussions also addressed the implementation of the Constitutional Court's judgments and the possibility of designating a single responsible authority to monitor the implementation of Constitutional Court judgments. The officials also discussed the justice minister's proposal to authorize courts to assess, in exceptional cases, whether real estate could be left to a bona fide purchaser, thus strengthening the protection of bona fide purchasers.