President of the Constitutional Court Ineta Ziemele confirmed as the Latvia’s representative in the Venice Commission
On 6 and 7 December, President of the Constitutional Court Ineta Ziemele attended the 121st plenary session of the Council of Europe Commission for Democracy through Law (the Venice Commission). This plenary session was the first that Ineta Ziemele attended in the status of an individual member. Aldis Laviņš was confirmed as her substitute member.
Individual members of the Venice Commission are university professors of public and international law, judges of supreme and constitutional courts, members of national parliaments, as well as a number of civil servants. They are independent experts, who through their involvement in democratic institutions or their contribution to the legal and political science have gained high public professional recognition. Experts work in the Venice Commission in individual status and are impartial.
Until December 2019, the individual member form Latvia in the Venice Commission was Aivars Endziņš, the first President of the Constitutional Court, whereas Gunārs Kūtris, the former President of the Constitutional Court, was his substitute member.
The Constitutional Court is actively involved in the work of the Venice Commission. The Constitutional Court regularly prepares information for the official publication of the Venice Commission – “Bulletin of Constitutional Case-Law” and also contributes to the studies published by the Venice Commission. The Constitutional Court is an active member in the forum established by the Venice Commission, which allows the constitutional courts and bodies equal to them of the Venice Commission’s Member States to request and provide information on foreign legal regulation and case law on different matters at short notice.
The Constitutional Court has organised jointly with the Venice Commission various international conferences and seminars on relevant constitutional law issues. The last jointly organised conference was the international conference dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the Constitutional Court “Activism of the Constitutional Court in a Democratic State”. The presentations given at the Conference have been published also as a collection and are available in Latvian and English to all interested parties in electronic format. President of the Venice Commission Gianni Buquicchio participated also in the international conference, organised by the Constitutional Court in May 2018, “The Role of Constitutional Courts in the Globalised World of the 21st Century”.
About the Venice Commission
The Venice Commission is an advisory body of the Council of Europe in matters of constitutional law. The role of the Venice Commission is to provide legal support to its Member States and assist, in particular, those states that wish to achieve compliance of their legal and institutional structures with European standards and international experience in the area democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. It also helps to ensure dissemination and consolidation of common constitutional heritage. The Venice Commission has a unique role in conflict resolution, and it provides “emergency constitutional assistance” to countries in transition.
The Commission has 62 Member States: 47 Member States of the Council of Europe and 15 other countries.
President of the Constitutional Court. Photo: Archive of the Constitutional Court.