Artūrs Kučs

Judge of the Constitutional Court
Assoc. Prof., Dr. iur.

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 doctoral study programmes at the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia and at the 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 Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia, 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 Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia, 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  during the period between 2008 and 2011 also an Arbitrator at the Academic Arbitration Court of the University of Latvia.

Artūrs Kučs has conducted scientific research on human rights also abroad, often under prestigious grant programmes. It is especially noteworthy that, as a Fulbright grantee, Artūrs Kučs conducted a 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 topical issues in human rights.

Artūrs Kučs is the author of numerous publications on media law, the international human rights and their importance, 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 Judge, and assumed the office on 21 April 2017.