A case on a norm of the Road Traffic Law has been initiated
The Second Panel of the Constitutional Court has initiated a case “On Compliance of Section 9 (4) of the Road Traffic Law with Article 91 and Article 105 of the Satversme of the Republic of Latvia”.
Article 105 of the Satversme provides, among the rest, that everyone shall have the right to own property, whilst Article 91 of the Satversme guarantees equality before the law and the courts.
The Contested Norm prohibits citizens and non-citizens of Latvia, as well as a person who has received a registration certificate, a permanent residence certificate or residence permit issued in Latvia to drive an automobile, which is permanently registered in a foreign state, in the road traffic in the territory of Latvia. The above mentioned norm also contains several exceptions; however, they do not apply to the situations described by the person who submitted the constitutional complaint, namely, a European company “BTA”. The applicant indicates that, in Latvia, it is registered as a European company (EC) having several affiliates in other states. To fulfil its business activities, the company has to regularly send its employees to other States to execute certain tasks. The particular contested norm prohibits the applicant to freely select, from the point of view of the most optimal way of business management, cars registered in a particular state to be offered to the employee for working purposes, provided that he or she has to get around both, foreign states and the territory of Latvia. Consequently, the contested norm restricts the possibility to execute business activities and infringes the right of the applicant to own property.
The Saeima (Parliament) was asked to provide, before 1 July 2011, a reply on factual circumstances of the case and legal justification thereof. The term of preparation of the case is 28 September 2011.
Linked case: 2011-09-01