Opening address by the President of the Constitutional Court Aldis Laviņš at the conference “The Role of the Constitutional Courts in Concretising the Shared Values Uniting Europe”
President of the Constitutional Court of Latvia Aldis Laviņš
Opening address at the conference “The Role of the Constitutional Courts in Concretising the Shared Values Uniting Europe”
Riga, 1 March 2024
Highly honourable Minister for Justice!
Dear colleagues, Judges, professors and conference participants!
Welcome to the International Conference of the Constitutional Court of Latvia “The Role of the Constitutional Courts in Concretising the Shared Values Uniting Europe” in Riga, the capital of Latvia, on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Latvia and nine other countries becoming members of the community of values and rights – the European Union!
We have just sung the Latvian national anthem, which is also a prayer of our people, under the leadership of the chief conductor of the General Song Celebration, Jurģis Cābulis. At different times, it has led us to where we are today – to our common home – a European area of freedom, security and justice – as the uniting chorus of the Latvian people.
It would be relatively easy for a Latvian to explain the foundations of our national identity to a representative of another culture through the code of the Song and Dance Celebration. In contrast, the constitutional identity of the Latvian state and the grounds for establishing it are already a rather complex legal task to be resolved in dialogue with the European Court of Justice. For example, in the case on restrictions imposed on private higher education institutions regarding the use of language in the implementation of study programmes, both the Constitutional Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union emphasised the essential importance of the official language as an element of the constitutional identity of the state. The Constitutional Court’s case is a good example of how the constitutional identity of a State can coexist harmoniously throughout the European Union with the requirements arising from supranational legal frameworks.
The international conferences of the Constitutional Court of Latvia always serve as a forum for discussion and the generation of new ideas on constitutional values. Today’s conference is an organic continuation of the previously successive efforts to promote effective interaction between the three legal systems – national, international and European Union law.
One of the first steps was the launch of the “United in Diversity” series of conferences in Riga in 2021. At the next conference in Hague, informally known as Riga Two, the Constitutional Court of Latvia already proposed criteria for how a particular national value could be recognised as part of a country’s constitutional identity. Last September, at the National Library of Latvia, we discussed the framework of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the role of the core of national constitutional identities in implementing the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Finally, today we will bring together in a single conference the challenges facing all three legal systems, the common understanding of which will shape the future of our common legal space.
The conference will be organised in two panel sessions: “Reconciling Member States’ constitutional identities with common European values” and “European consensus shaping the European public order”. And there are carefully considered reasons for this division.
There is no doubt that the legal systems of both the European Union and the Council of Europe are based on common European values. But at the same time, there are elements of constitutional identity that are essential for Member States, and the process of applying the law can lead to real or imagined clashes between common European values and national constitutional identities.
The aim of this conference is to move towards a common understanding of how:
firstly, to distinguish “genuine” constitutional identities from other national values that fall below a certain “quality” standard to be considered the constitutional basis of a given Member State;
secondly, how to apply the elements of constitutional identity correctly to achieve a fair and sustainable solution in the context of the European Union as a whole.
At the same time, given that law is in a constant process of development, the conference should focus on the doctrinal thesis that there might be an “unchangeable core” of common European values that national constitutional identities cannot affect.
Today’s second session of the conference will focus on the European Consensus, basically known as a doctrine developed in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, which can be understood as a reflection of a set of European values, whether existing or, on the contrary, changing. As we can see from the case law of recent years, the European Consensus has a real impact on the scope and application of fundamental rights, but national courts need clarity on the methodology to be used to ascertain the existence and impact of the European Consensus on the standard of fundamental rights. Looking to the future, the organising team had the courage to ask the participants to be visionaries of a kind and to discuss also that, if the European Consensus is understood as a mechanism that influences the understanding of the content of common European values, then could and how could the European Consensus also shape the development of the European Union’s legal system?
Finally, I will conclude with two important points. Tradition is a powerful force – the Riga Conference has returned to being held in the first half of the year, as in the pre-pandemic days. Spring is approaching and I am already looking forward with optimism to the 2025 Spring Conference in Riga, which the Constitutional Court of Latvia will organise together with the Constitutional Court of Ukraine within the framework of the Council of Europe project “Support for the Development of Constitutional Justice in Ukraine”. Our Ukrainian colleagues are not only ensuring the continuity of their work in a time of war, but are also developing and setting high goals for the future Ukraine – a democratic state governed by the rule of law in the family of developed European countries!
In thinking about the quality of the conference, we have taken into account the observation that there is sometimes not enough time for discussion, but it has to be said that it is the discussion that provides a large added value to reaching the objectives of the conferences. That is why the organising team has set aside an unusually large amount of time for questions and comments. I invite everyone to take an active part in discussing the issues on the rights to be considered!
I wish the participants every success in identifying ways to achieve a more harmonious interaction between these three legal systems!