Artūrs Kučs, the Justice of the Constitutional Court, enters office

21.04.2017.

Today, on 21 April, Artūrs Kučs took the oath of a judge and entered the office of the Justice of the Constitutional Court.

Artūrs Kučs was born on 9 December 1975.

Artūrs Kučs studied at the University of Latvia, from which he obtained two bachelor degrees, becoming a Bachelor of Political Science in international relations in 1999, and a Bachelor of Law in 2001.

He studied for his Master’s degree at the University of Padua (Italy) and Lund University (Sweden). In 2002, Artūrs Kučs received a European Master’s degree in Human Rights and Democratization.

Artūrs Kučs completed post-graduate study programmes at the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia and at Aarhus University (Denmark). In 2007, he was awarded a doctoral degree in law for his thesis Balancing the Right to Freedom of Speech with the Prohibition of Intolerance and Discrimination Speech.

Artūrs Kučs started his career in 2002 as a researcher at the Human Rights Institute of the University of Latvia, Faculty of Law, becoming the director of this Institute in 2004.

Since 2006, Artūrs Kučs is the Head and an Associate Professor at the Department of International and European Law of the University of Latvia Faculty of Law, teaching several courses on international and European law, supervising academic and research projects, preparing students for participation in international moot competitions on human rights and media law. In 2012, Artūrs Kučs started working at the Ombudsman’s Office of the Republic of Latvia as an advisor to the Ombudsman; he was also a lecturer at Latvian Judicial Training Centre.

Early in 2016, Artūrs Kučs was elected ad hoc judge to the European Court of Human Rights, where he works on judgments in cases in which the permanent Latvian judge cannot sit.

Artūrs Kučs was a member of the Examination Commission of the Latvian Council of Sworn Advocates, a member of the Ethics Committee of the Latvian Association of Journalists, and at his time – during the period between 2008 and 2011 – also an arbitrator at the Academic Arbitration Court of the University of Latvia.

He has engaged in research work in the field of human rights also abroad, repeatedly – in the framework of prestigious grant programs. It is especially noteworthy that, as a Fulbright grantee, Artūrs Kučs conducted research at the University of Connecticut, Hartford (USA) on the freedom of speech doctrine in the judicial practice of the United States of America and the practice of the European Court of Human Rights.

Artūrs Kučs has frequently participated in the European Law Academy seminars on recent developments in the activity of the European Court of Human Rights, as well as in local and international-scale conferences devoted to the aspects of international law and the topical issues in human rights.

Artūrs Kučs is the author of publications on international human rights and their significance, the practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the fundamental rights established in the EU regulations, protection of human rights in Latvia, and other similar topics.

On 22 December 2016, Artūrs Kučs was confirmed as a Constitutional Court Justice and assumed the office on 21 April 2017.