The Supreme Court (SC) is perplexed by the attitude and rhetoric of the Cabinet of Ministers (CM), which has been disseminating information in the public space suggesting that the SC has allegedly made excessive demands by requesting additional funding for its designated security priorities, the court told the LETA news agency.
According to the SC, such rhetoric was voiced by Prime Minister Evika Siliņa (New Unity).
As the SC emphasizes, the Cabinet of Ministers stated in its response to the Saeima’s Legal Affairs Committee that the preparation of the current budget project differed from previous years due to the tense external geopolitical situation. The SC points out that the procedure for preparing the budget project is established in regulatory enactments and cannot be adjusted for each situation without making the necessary amendments to those regulations.
“The Supreme Court does not live separately from the Latvian state and society,” the court stresses, adding that it understands and supports the priority given to security and defence in the state budget and stands in solidarity with other sectors that will have to reduce their current activities and possibly their development. Therefore, it also understands and respects that neither judges nor court staff — including judges’ assistants — will receive additional remuneration funding in 2026, the SC noted.
The court highlights that in 2026, as in previous years,
the largest share of the SC’s budget expenditure is remuneration — 92.4%.
Expenditure on goods and services accounts for 6.4% — more than half of that for information technology solutions, whose maintenance costs will only increase in 2026. For example, amendments to regulations require entering into a contract with a cybersecurity manager, which is a paid external service. Capital investments constitute 1.1% and international cooperation 0.1%.
Given this structure, and the fact that the SC has always prepared its budgets conservatively and therefore has not requested or accumulated surplus funds, the possibilities to significantly reduce expenditure without affecting core court functions are limited.
Nevertheless, after carefully analysing and reviewing financial positions, the SC, in solidarity with other state institutions, has reduced its 2026 expenditures by 20,000 euros in areas related to training, business trips and international cooperation.
The SC’s budget request included two measures directly related to security.
The first was improving the security systems of the SC’s Classified Information Regime Department premises to comply with new legal requirements. This section was removed from the request by the Cabinet of Ministers and therefore was not submitted to the Saeima, despite the fact that the funds were necessary to comply with security standards introduced by the government itself.
The court emphasizes that it decided to implement this priority measure in accordance with legal requirements by reallocating resources from lower-priority activities. This was possible because a year-end budget surplus is expected and the amount is relatively small — 25,000 euros.
The second priority focused on ensuring the SC’s operations under potential threat scenarios — for example, if its IT infrastructure were damaged or access to its building became impossible. For this purpose, 200,000 euros was requested.
The SC cannot reallocate funds for this priority from activities with expenditure underperformance, because organizing a public procurement of this scale is not possible within the remainder of the budget year — one to two months. The court stresses that enhancing the security of the SC’s data infrastructure is an essential security measure, and
the funding needed for cloud services cannot depend on annual budget execution,
which the SC cannot predict.
The court calls for understanding that the budget request is prepared so that the SC can fulfil all of its functions. Actual budget execution cannot be planned with complete precision because it depends on many unpredictable factors. For example, if a senator retires in April, a vacancy arises, creating a budget surplus. The competition to fill the position may take up to six months and sometimes ends without a result, requiring a new competition.
Budget execution is also affected by staff turnover, employee absences, performance evaluations, and the prices and delivery of goods and services. Therefore, although the budget is planned at 100%, it is impossible to ensure its 100% execution, and underperformance varies each year.
The SC points out that any budget surplus is transferred to the State Treasury and does not “disappear.” The court also notes that the State Audit Office has always approved the SC’s annual reports without objections.
“Therefore,
the SC cannot accept the public accusations made by the Prime Minister,
which may negatively affect public trust in the court — trust which has significantly increased in recent years,” the court states.
As reported, the Cabinet of Ministers has called on the SC to first review its expenditures and assess internal possibilities to reallocate funds from activities that show underperformance to ensure the financing needed for urgent priority measures, according to the government’s response to the Saeima’s Legal Affairs Committee and the SC.
If necessary, the government invites the SC to submit proposals for reallocating its budget to other activities for consideration in the second reading of next year’s budget in the Saeima.
In its reply to the Saeima’s Legal Affairs Committee, the CM highlights that the preparation of this budget project was different from previous years due to the tense geopolitical situation and NATO decisions on increasing member-state defence expenditure.
Accordingly, at the meeting on the 13th of may, 2025, the Cabinet decided that from 2026 it will move towards allocating 5% of GDP for national defence, achievement of NATO capability targets, security needs, and military support for Ukraine.
The government also instructed the public sector to increase efficiency and reduce general government expenditure
by at least 450 million euros for 2026–2028, including no less than 150 million euros in 2026, primarily to provide additional funding for national defence. To meet this target, several decisions on cutting public-sector expenditure were taken during the budget preparation process.
The government also notes that the 2025–2028 Fiscal Structural Plan progress report, reviewed by the Cabinet on the 15th of April, 2025, found that based on defined fiscal conditions and then-current forecasts, the fiscal space for the next budget cycle was negative. Under the Law on Budget and Financial Management, ministries and other central government institutions may submit proposals for priority measures only if resources will be available for them in the upcoming economic years.
Thus, at the meeting on the 25th of June, 2025, ministries and central government institutions were instructed not to submit proposals for priority measures, while independent institutions were invited not to submit such proposals.
Nevertheless,
the government acknowledges that independent institutions have the right to submit proposals for priority measures,
and their budget requests cannot be amended before submission to the Cabinet without the institution’s consent.
The Ministry of Finance consolidated all such proposals from independent institutions and submitted them for review at the Cabinet meeting on the 19th of August, 2025, with representatives of all such institutions invited. Representatives were also invited to the Cabinet meeting on the 22nd of September, which reviewed the informational report on priority measures for 2026–2028. Again, the SC’s representative did not use the opportunity to speak.
Additionally, the government notes that under the 2025 state budget law, the SC’s 2025 budget increased by 427,900 euros compared to the previous year, while its 2024 budget execution was 959,800 euros lower than planned. In the first nine months of 2025, execution stands at only 65.5%, equivalent to roughly seven months of expenditure — leading the government to conclude that budget underperformance may also occur in 2025.
For 2026, the SC requested 609,990 euros for its priority measures, 554,860 euros for 2027, and 500,000 euros for 2028 and 2029. Key measures include maintaining a competitive remuneration system for SC staff, requiring 314,860 euros annually from 2026 to 2029, and funding a national expert at the Court of Justice of the European Union’s Research and Documentation Directorate (55,130 euros in 2026). Meanwhile, 30,000 euros is required in 2026 and 2027 for improving security systems in the SC’s Classified Information Regime Department.
At the end of September, SC Chief Justice Aigars Strupišs told the Saeima’s Budget and Finance Committee that the SC also plans to freeze salaries. However, he explained that there are priorities the SC cannot abandon, such as 30,000 euros for classified information regime security and about 200,000 euros for transferring IT systems to servers located abroad.
Strupišs also acknowledged that administrative expenses could be reduced by 20,000 euros by cutting training and business travel costs.
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