On Friday, 14 January, at the meeting of the Justice Council Latvian Prosecutor General Juris Stukāns turned the attention of leading officials in the field of justice towards the lengthy trials and cases when prosecutors resign shortly after those trials.
He said the office of the prosecutor has lost prosecutors who hoped to see their criminal cases reach a verdict in court but could not due to long trials.
This results in a need to look for new prosecutors that would be able to represent the side of prosecution in court. Such prosecutors should have the courage to «stare down a rushing train,» said Stukāns.
«The prosecutor investigates a case, the court then schedules a trial, but then the prosecutor leaves by then. We cannot possibly review cases well enough if there are breaks as long as several months between court hearings and trials last for years. I am talking about the principle of continuity, when it is best to sit in the courtroom for two weeks and them move on to preparation of a ruling. It gets hard whenever prosecutors switch places, which results in quality suffering a drop,» says Stukāns.
Several prosecutors who maintained the side of prosecution in trials for years have since retired but the cases they worked on still haven’t reached an outcome. Because of this other prosecutors have had to take on and study those cases.
Latvian Prosecutor General unhappy with long trials and prosecutors resigning after them
