Latvia, Legislation

In his letter to Saeima Speaker Solvita Aboltina (Unity), Berzins points out that the amendments do not guarantee observance of voter rights, and their coming into force is postponed for too long.

As reported, the amendments envisage abandoning the current procedure of organizing referendums; under the new system, initiators of a referendum will have to themselves gather the number of signatures necessary for staging a referendum – around 150,000 signatures altogether.

According to Berzins, the amendments are "a step in the right direction", since state-funded referendums should not be used by minorities to enforce their agendas on the majority.

However, the president is concerned that, due to the fact that the amendments stipulate that referendum initiators will have to collect the required number of signatures on their own, the bill will only increase the role of money in politics and reduce political activity of Latvian civil society.

Berzins emphasizes that, as long as there are no clear-cut regulations regarding the parliament's proposed solutions – electronic signature drives and collection of signatures in local governments, the amendments should not stipulate abandoning the two-stages referendum initiation procedure, only the necessary numbers of signatures can be discussed.

The bill is also in need of other improvements to prevent several contradictions and tighten control over pre-election campaigns, points out Berzins.

The amendments were approved by the parliament on June 21.