The Constitutional Court opens access to the database of its judicature and provides the possibility to use the Court’s book collection
Today, on 22 July, the Constitutional Court opens access to the database of the Constitutional Court’s judicature that has been developed over the course of several years and also offers the possibility to use the Court’s collection of books and publications, accumulated since its establishment. The database of the Constitutional Court will be available to all after downloading the programme of the database – Citavi – and installing it in the computer. The list of books and publications will be published on the homepage of the Constitutional Court, and anyone interested will be able to use the book or publication, upon request, at the Court’s library.
Ineta Ziemele, the President of the Constitutional Court, comments on the initiative: “The Constitutional Court has adopted this decision on broadening the accessibility of information to share with general public the resources that the Justices and the Court’s employees have meticulously created, systematised and collected throughout the Court’s existence. I believe that the judicial power should be in step with the times and, insofar possible, should use the possibilities offered by our age of technologies to facilitate convenient access to information. I believe that these resources will be useful not only in preparing applications to the Constitutional Court, to reinforce the legal reasoning, but will be also research material for all interested parties, including court employees, representatives of legal professions, researchers, and students. Latvia should be strengthened as modern knowledge and information society.”
Employees of the Constitutional Court will open to general public the information sources created by the Court at the 16th Seminar on Constitutional Law Policy, which this year will be held from 22 to 26 July in Bīriņi. The annual seminar gathers the most prominent representatives of the legal field in Latvia: judges, scholars, practitioners, makers of the national law policy, parties applying the law, lawyers, and students. This year the seminar will focus on the following topics: good legislation, information technologies in a lawyer’s work, artificial intelligence and the future of law. The participants of the seminar will also discuss what the unified state exam for lawyers should be like. The seminar is organised by the association “Public Law Institute”, supported also by the Constitutional Court.
On the database of the Constitutional Court’s judicature
The database of the Constitutional Court’s judicature comprises the most significant findings from the Court’s judgements, decisions on terminating legal proceedings and Justice’s dissenting opinions. These findings are arranged in the database according to keywords and categories. The database contains statistics about the applicants, the contested norms, institutions that issued these norms, as well as other information related to the legal proceedings before the Constitutional Court.
The database was created by using the programme Citavi. In order to use the database, the users first of all have to download and install on their computer this programme. By choosing version 5 (Citavi 5.7.1), it can be used, to a limited extent, free of charge. The database also needs to be downloaded.
The programme Citavi, database and instructions on using the database are found in the sub-section “Database of Judicature” in the section “Cases” on the homepage of the Constitutional Court. The translation of terms used in software Citavi is also found there (although information that the Constitutional Court has entered into the database is in Latvian, the basic language of the programme Citavi is English).
See here [in Latvian]: https://www.satv.tiesa.gov.lv/citavi-downloads/
On the Constitutional Court’s collection of books and publications
The list of Constitutional Court’s collection of books (in PDF format) in Latvian and in English has been added to the sub-section “Book Collection” of the section ”Library” on the Court’s homepage, it also includes a separate document listing the collection of books in other languages. The collections of periodicals in Latvian and in other languages are also listed. Anyone interested has the possibility to use the books and publications in the Court’s collection by writing to e-mail: Ilze.Bierne@satv.tiesa.gov.lv, indicating the particular book or publication you are interested in, as well as the purpose of using this book or publications. Upon receiving the request, a Court’s employee will contact the person and inform about the possibility to visit the Court’s library. Books and publications will be available for use only in the premises of the Court’s library.
See here [in Latvian]: https://www.satv.tiesa.gov.lv/runas-un-raksti/gramatu-kratuve/