VIDEO: Constitutional Court of Latvia holds an international conference “The Role of the Constitutional Courts in Concretising the Shared Values Uniting Europe”
Today at 10.00, to mark the 20th anniversary of Latvia’s membership in the European Union, the Constitutional Court will hold international conference “The Role of the Constitutional Courts in Concretising the Shared Values Uniting Europe” to initiate discussion among the European national constitutional courts, the Court of Justice of the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights to develop a united understanding of the factors that influence the shared European values and their interaction with the constitutional identities of the Member States. The Conference will be organised in two panel sessions: “Reconciling constitutional identities of the Member States with the shared European values” and “European consensus shaping the European public order”.
The Conference will be streamed on the Constitutional Court’s YouTube channel:
President of the Constitutional Court Aldis Laviņš: “The theme chosen for the international conference of this year is organic continuation of the idea that has been successively advanced by the Constitutional Court – to facilitate ever closer and as harmonious as possible interaction between the three systems – the national, international and European Union law. Both the European Union and the Council of Europe base their work on the shared European values. At the same time, fundamental elements of constitutional identity, essential for the Member States, exist and, sometimes, a collision between the shared European values and the constitutional identities of the States may cause challenges within this complicated system. The objective of the Conference is to identify foreseeable criteria for dealing consistently with the conflicts between the constitutional identities and the European values. As regards the European consensus, the doctrine developed within the judicature of the European Court of Human Rights, at the conference, we shall discuss the methodology to be used to ascertain the existence of consensus and its impact on the scope of fundamental rights.”
The opening addresses at the Conference will be given by President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia Aldis Laviņš and Minister of Justice of the Republic of Latvia Inese Lībiņa-Egnere.
Presentations at the Conference will be given by:
Martin Kuijer, Vice President of the European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice Commission), Judge of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands
Mykola Gnatovskyy, Judge of the European Court of Human Rights
Peter M. Huber, Professor at the Faculty of Law at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University (Munich)
Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou, Professor in Human Rights Law at the University of Liverpool
Artūrs Kučs, Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia
Maciej Szpunar, First Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union
George Letsas, Professor of the Philosophy of Law at the University College London
Elīna Luīze Vītola, Deputy Agent of the Government (before the European Court of Human Rights)
Ineta Ziemele, Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, former President and Judge of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia (2015–2020)
Mārtiņš Paparinskis, Professor of Public International Law at the University College London
More information about the Conference and its agenda is available on the Constitutional Court’s homepage.
Representatives of mass media, wishing to attend the conference, broadcast it or request interviews, are kindly invited to e-mail Ksenija.Vitola@satv.tiesa.gov.lv or phone +371 67830749, + 371 28304809.