A case on provisions regarding restoring of vehicle driver licence has been initiated
The Second Panel of the Constitutional Court has initiated a case “On Compliance of the First Sentence of Section 40 of 6 March 2007 Cabinet of Ministers Regulation No. 173 “Procedure for Obtaining of Vehicle Driver’s Qualification, Obtaining and Restoration of Vehicle Driver Licence and Procedure for Issuing, Change and Restoration of Vehicle Driver Licence” with Article 64 of the Satversme of the Republic of Latvia”.
Article 64 of the Satversme (Constitution) provides that the Saeima (Parliament), and also the people, have the right to legislate in accordance with the procedure, and to the extent provided for by this Constitution.
The Contested Norm provided, among the rest things: if a person is deprived of a vehicle driver licence for the period of one year or more, the person shall have the duty to pass the theoretical and driving test of category B in one of the departments of the Road Traffic Safety Directorate (CSDD) that organizes such tests for his or her driver licence to be restored. Cabinet of Ministers Regulation that contained the contested norm lost its force on 31 December 2009.
The applicant – the Department of Administrative Cases of the Senate of the Supreme Court indicates in its application that the contested norm has been adopted in accordance with the authority conferred to the Cabinet of Ministers by the Road Traffic Law, namely, the authority to adopt regulations regarding the procedure for obtaining of vehicle driver’s qualification, that of obtaining and restoring of vehicle driver licence. No delegation established by the legislator to the Cabinet of Ministers to provide that in certain cases a person has the duty to pass theoretical and driving test of category B for his or her driving licence to be restored follows from the Law. Therefore, by adopting the contested norm, the Cabinet of Ministers has exceeded the limits of its authority. It can be concluded that the contested norm does not comply with Article 64 of the Satversme.
The Cabinet of Ministers was asked to provide, before 12 June 2010, a reply on factual circumstances of the case and legal justification thereof. The term of preparation of the case is 12 October 2010.
Linked case: 2010-40-03