Toward a level playing field in Latvia Outlook Thought Leadership Forum: “Will Latvia remain an attractive place for doing business?” June 30, 20 1 1 – Jens Pastille, Attorney at law. 01. Why Latvia is attractive for business. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
length of civil proceedings three instances of court; two full trial stages practically no default judgments; ineffective rules for late submissions unregulated and vast arbitration landscape
abuse of interim relief proceedingsfocus on securitization by attachment (“civil arrest”), rather than injunctive relief or TROslow-level single judgeinsufficient appeals process; no statutory time-limits
abuse of the criminal processinvestigative (pre-trial) proceedings outside judicial reviewnumerous overly broad offenses on the booksseveral special police forces operating with near-impunity and without judicial review
Latvians are by no means more prone to corruption than others, but the Latvian legal system is.
The uneven playing field in Latvia is in large part a product of bad laws, i.e. laws that fail to function in their own socio-economic context.
The most serious normative dysfunction attaches not to substantive legislation but to procedure - the core of the legal system: civil procedure, insolvency laws and the criminal process lack safeguards against abuse.
Laws can be changed faster than mindsets or institutions. Better laws do work.