Prosecutor Jānis Baumanis has rejected an application by Oskars Rode, representative of the company Kaspianlab LP, to reopen proceedings concerning criminally acquired property on the grounds of newly discovered circumstances, even though earlier this year the Constitutional Court (CC) ruled unconstitutional the restrictions that previously prevented evidence from being submitted to the Regional Court in such cases, LETA has learned.
At the beginning of the year, the CC found that Section 629(4) of the Criminal Procedure Law, which until the 22nd of October, 2024, did not provide a person in proceedings on criminally acquired property with the right to submit evidence to the Regional Court for objective reasons, was inconsistent with the Constitution.
The court stressed that, when restricting the parties’ rights to submit evidence to the Regional Court, a balance must be ensured between the principle of equality of arms and the effective and timely conduct of proceedings on criminally acquired property.
The case had been initiated on the applications of legal entities – Kaspianlab LP and AS ASG Resolution Capital – regarding the compliance of the contested provision of the Criminal Procedure Law with the first sentence of Article 92 of the Constitution. The applicants argued that the contested provision, by prohibiting the submission of evidence to the Regional Court, disproportionately restricted their right to a fair trial and the equality of arms inherent in that right. Specifically, the provision limited a person’s ability, while the case was still being heard on its merits, to submit evidence that could substantially affect the outcome of proceedings on criminally acquired property.
Based on the CC’s ruling, Rode submitted an application to reopen the proceedings,
as new evidence had been introduced in the case.
After reviewing the materials from the proceedings separated on the 10th of March, 2022, concerning criminally acquired property, as well as the materials from the investigation of newly discovered circumstances, the prosecutor concluded there were no grounds to annul the decision of the Economic Affairs Court of the 4th of July, 2022, or the decision of the Riga Regional Court of the 21st of April, 2023.
The prosecutor noted that in launching the investigation of newly discovered circumstances, it was taken into account that, regarding Section 655(2)(4) of the Criminal Procedure Law—which provides that a CC ruling on the unconstitutionality of a legal norm or its interpretation on which a decision was based constitutes a newly discovered circumstance—the Supreme Court (SC) had previously made an exception, applying this circumstance also to proceedings on criminally acquired property.
In other criminal proceedings, the SC had decided to reopen cases on criminally acquired property on the grounds of newly discovered circumstances and to send them back for retrial.
The prosecutor stressed, however, that since 2018 nearly seven years have passed, and during this time the legislator has not amended the procedure provided in Chapter 62 of the Criminal Procedure Law. In other words, the legislator has not endorsed the SC’s approach whereby Chapter 62 of the Criminal Procedure Law would apply to proceedings governed by Chapter 59 of the law.
In summary, the prosecutor emphasized that the actual reason for rejecting the request was not Section 629(4) of the Criminal Procedure Law, but rather that the court had already found the first request by Kaspianlab LP unenforceable, since Chapter 59 of the law does not provide for witness examination in proceedings on criminally acquired property. As for the company’s second request, the court held that the submitted documents were not related to the origin of the criminally acquired funds.
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