Latvia's new justice minister faces Herculean task

Latvia's new Justice Minister Jānis Bordāns was sworn into office on Thursday. His predecessor Gaidis Bērziņš resigned two weeks ago without giving any reason for his decision. Bordāns must now take on the challenge of reforming the judicial system, the business paper Dienas Bizness writes: "The concrete issue at hand is that the Senate of the Supreme Court has delivered extremely diverging sentences in cases that were in fact very similar. This effectively means that a lawyer need only reach a certain level in his career to be able to interpret any law however he pleases. It's clear that judges have the job of pronouncing judgement. But entrepreneurs, for instance, should be able to rely on a law, and not just the judge's ideas about that law. Naturally the minister can't reform the entire judicial system on his own if the judges aren't willing to cooperate. They must all tackle this task together. But the minister can at least make the problem a top priority."

» full article (external link, Latvian)
More from the press review on the subject » Domestic Policy, » Justice, » Latvia

» To the complete press review of Friday, July 6, 2012