EU – Baltic States, Latvia, Legislation

She said that every year the ECHR received around 300 complaints from Latvia but only few were actually accepted for hearing. For example, last year the court requested the Latvian government to provide explanations only in six cases.

According to Lice, people tend to think that you can complain to the ECHR about just about anything but it is not true. The ECHR only hears the cases pertaining to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Since 1997, Latvia has paid over EUR 2 million in compensations in accordance with the ECHR rulings. About a half of this amount or EUR 1.22 million were paid in a single case to two individuals, who were seeking just compensation for land in Riga that was expropriated in 1997 for the development of the Riga port.

Lice said that at the moment people were complaining about Latvia to the ECHR mostly about violations of the right to fair trial, the right to respect for private and family life and the right to property, concerning, for example, establishment of natural micro-reserves and the related compensations.