On the 18th of April, the Supreme Court’s Administrative Cases Department ruled in favour of Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB) in a case against For Latvia’s Development political party, ordering the party to pay to the state budget an illegally received donation of EUR 1 700.
The Supreme Court reports the party had turned to the court with a request to cancel KNAB’s decision to enforce the payment of illegally obtained funds to the state budget. Both the Administrative Court and Administrative Regional Court rejected the party’s plea. After studying the cassation complaint, the Supreme Court admitted there is are grounds to reject the request for cassation trial. This put an end to the dispute and the ruling passed by the Administrative Regional Court will remain in force.
The Regional Court ruled in this case that the origin of the EUR 1 700 donation to the party was not the person who provided it – the money was transferred for another person specifically to be paid to the party. The payer was the mediator. This means there was a breach of political party financing rules.
With that, the Regional Court concluded that KNAB justifiably ordered the party to pay the illegally obtained money to the state budget.
The Supreme Court explained the law expressly prohibits a person from financing a party by paying in his own name the financial resources received from another person for this purpose. A violation of these norms is established in the event that a person has not transferred his or her financial means to the party, but has acted as an intermediary. The funds received in this way must be transferred to the state budget by the party.
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