SECOND DAY VIDEO: International conference “Sustainability as a Constitutional Value: Future Challenges”
Today at 9.30 (Riga time) begins the second day of the international conference “Sustainability as a Constitutional Value: Future Challenges”.
Conference will be live streamed here in English:
Live stream in Latvian:
On 15 and 16 September, the Constitutional Court is organising international conference “Sustainability as a Constitutional Value: Future Challenges” to mark the 25th anniversary of the Constitutional Court and the centenary of the Satversme.
In the year of the Satversme’s centenary, sustainability has been chosen as the topic for the international conference, held by the Constitutional Court. Sustainability is one of the constitutional principles directed at implementing the aims and values, enshrined in the constitution. Hence, in their rulings, constitutional courts must deal with issues related to the sustainability of the nation, the state, the people, as well as that of humanity and the entire world. Until now, the Latvian Constitutional Court, as regards sustainability, has examined in its judgements such matters as environment protection, the use of natural resources, the state budget, taxation policy, social security, legislation, and militant democracy. In the case law of other constitutional courts, sustainability issues have been examined in connection with the protection of fundamental rights and environmental law.
The conference will last two days, allowing to foreground various aspects of the sustainability principle during three panel discussions. The first panel discussion will be dedicated to the sustainability of democracy, the second one will focus on the sustainability of fundamental rights and adaptation to the age of modern technologies, whereas the topic for the last, concluding discussion will be environmental sustainability.
Aldis Laviņš, President of the Constitutional Court, underscores that “The Constitutional Court has chosen a significant and relevant topic for the international conference since the sustainability of democracy and fundamental rights pertain to every state and every inhabitant, it also relates to responsibility of each person before the future generations. We are honoured that, in the year of the Satversme’s centenary, the Latvian Constitutional Court will be visited by so many judges from the European constitutional courts and by other internationally recognised legal scholars and practitioners.”
Judges from the European constitutional courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union, as well as representatives from the Council of Europe Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission) will participate in the conference.
Conference will be opened by President of the Constitutional Court Aldis Laviņš. Presentations will be given by President of Latvia Egils Levits, Pauliine Koskelo, Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, Ineta Ziemele, Judge of the Court of Justice of the European Union, Herdis Kjerulf Thorgeirsdóttir, Vice President of the Venice Commission, Irēna Kucina, Vice-president of the Constitutional Court, Artūrs Kučs and Anita Rodiņa, Justices of the Constitutional Court, Henrich Amadeus Wolff, Justice of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, Dineke de Goot, Judge of the Supreme Court of the Netherlands and Danutė Jočienė, President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania, as well as other judges from the European Constitutional Courts.