Expanding power of attorney may not apply to existing president / day

State President Edgars Rinkēvičs has offered the Saeima a total of five amendments to the law in the last week, linking them all to the desire to reduce the public’s distrust of the state. The Saeima adopted the first Saeima on Thursday to discuss the nomination of candidates for the President of the Bank of Latvia, the Ombudsman and the Head of the State Audit Office, not 10 members of the Saeima, as it is today. The second offer of the president affects changes in the referendum. Of course, I would like to start immediately with the central question – whether this is the right time for all, whether Rinkevich’s medicine is in line with his diagnosis and whether the president openes the Pandora chest, which can lead to a broader and dangerous amendment to the Satversme in Latvia. But I assume that you, as an expert of constitutional law, will want to analyze step by step, starting, first of all, with a change of nomination for three named state positions.

In my opinion, the President has identified a problem or shortcomings, and in this part I can agree to the President that nominations for candidates have repeatedly occurred in a procedure that has raised doubts and public confidence in the process of nominating the candidates themselves and their approval. In my view, this case with the nomination of the Governor of the Bank of Latvia, which is also referred to by the President, is not the first case, and as early as 2011, when I was promoting the Ombudsman’s candidate, it was also unable to agree, and the deadline was missed, if correctly remembered, so that recent I have seen several times.

Can this be a systemic problem? I think no. But any discussion can always lead to a better result – either a more optimal option or the conclusion that nothing has to be amended that it is good as it is.

I myself am a supporter of parliamentary democracy, and it seems to me that it is also the most appropriate system for our country in the current situation of Latvia. However, seeing these disadvantages, these shortcomings are repeated, I want to refer to the fact that such a study has been more than 10 years ago when the President’s Constitutional Law Commission assessed the expansion of the President’s constitutional powers while preserving the model of parliamentary democracy and found that there was no unequivocal correlation. There are different models in the world, and the people’s elected presidents with less real powers than the President of Parliament in Latvia. So this can start a broader public discussion.