Meeting between the Justices of the Latvian Constitutional Court, the Estonian Supreme Court and the Lithuanian Constitutional Court is concluded

04.10.2019.

On the 1^st and the 2^nd of October, the Justices of the Latvian Constitutional Court, in the framework of trilateral co-operation hosted delegations from the Estonian Supreme Court and the Lithuanian Constitutional Court. This was the first meeting at the Latvian Constitutional Court of the Justices from the Baltic States who are reviewing issues of constitutional law on daily basis.

During the meeting, Justices of the Estonian Supreme Court and the Lithuanian Constitutional Court provided an extensive insight into the judicature of their Courts, highlighting cases pertaining to the field of taxes and cases focusing on the issues of protecting human dignity. From this vantage point, the Justices of the Latvian Constitutional Court gave an overview on several cases heard by the Constitutional Court – on the regulation on threshold values of noise in the vicinity of moto-racing tracks (No. 2017-02-03); on the procedure for carrying over the re-funding of overpaid value added tax (No. 2017-12-01), on restrictions on voting rights (No. 2017-25-01), on the rates of real estate tax if the property is a foreigner’s declared place of residence (No. 2017-28-0306), on additional real estate tax rate for agricultural land that is not being farmed (No. 2018-04-01), on the solidarity tax (No. 2016-16-01), on collecting lease payments for a grave (No. 2018-08-03) and in cases related to personal data protection (No. 2018-18-01 and No. 2018-11-01).

The parties agreed that legal issues and their context were similar in many cases. Discussions on relevant issues of constitutional law led to the conclusion that, for example, in Estonia, recently a matter related to the administrative reform had been examined. Lithuanian and Estonia already have the first rulings with respect to the institution of partnership relations.

At the ends of the event, Chief Justice of the Estonian Supreme Court Villu Kõve underscored the significance of this meeting, noting that a number of legal issues, which were currently topical in one of the Baltic States, could become relevant also in another, therefore it was important to meet, strengthen co-operation, share experience, and stand firm together.

President of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court Dainius Žalimas expressed gratitude of the implementation of this initiative and hoped that this tri-lateral meeting was the beginning of a new tradition. Hew drew attention to the fact that all Baltic States had a lot in common that unites them, inter alia, many similar challenges that had to be addressed in the framework of constitutional law, therefore studying the case law of other Courts and experience sharing was very useful.

In concluding the tri-lateral meeting, President of the Constitutional Court Ineta Ziemele expressed her gratitude to the Baltic colleagues for the valuable meeting. She recognised that the meeting clearly revealed the similar path of development of the legal systems and case law in the Baltic States, inter alia; also the solutions adopted by the legislator with respect to several legal issues were comparable.

The aim of the tri-lateral meeting was to reinforce the judicial dialogue of the Baltic States and to promote judicial co-operation by discussing relevant national- and European-level constitutional law issues.

The Estonian delegation was led by Chief Justice of the Estonian Supreme Court Villu Kõve. Members of the delegation were Justices Viive Ligi and Peeter Roosma of the Estonian Supreme Court, as well as Adviser to the Chief Justice Karin Leichter-Tammisto.

The Lithuanian delegation, in turn, was led by President of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court Dainius Žalimas. The delegation consisted of three Justices of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court – Elvyra Baltutytė, Vytautas Greičius, and Gediminas Mesonis.