The Council of Latvian Sworn Advocates (ZAP) will appeal to the Council of Justice, calling for an investigation into the accusations made by Prosecutor General Juris Stukāns against the lawyer of the woman killed in Jēkabpils, the chairman of the ZAP Jānis Rozenbergs said.
In an interview in the magazine Ieva, Stukāns criticized the “victim’s side”, telling that the lawyer of the woman killed in the Jēkabpils region did not actively seek out options for protecting her client.
Rozenbergs noted that the interview sparked discussions among lawyers and concluded that ZAP should discuss a draft submission to the Council of Justice.
in the case of a support from Saeima, the potential investigation may end in the dismissal of Stukāns,
Rosenberg pointed out.
“In my opinion, the Prosecutor General has disgraced both himself and the institution he leads with these statements, and now the lawyers should at least apologize,” emphasized the head of ZAP.
Stukāns interview has also attracted the attention of President-elect Edgars Rinkēvičs.
“The tragedy in Jēkabpils is the negligence and responsibility of many state institutions, any attempt to blame the victim or her lawyer for what the state did not do is unacceptable, this also applies to the prosecutor’s office,” the Foreign Minister said on Twitter.
Stukāns told the magazine that he did not read the letter of the woman, in which she asked for the help of the Prosecutor General because there is not enough time to read all the letters sent to him. Instead, the letter has reached the responsible prosecutor’s office for evaluation.
“The woman’s lawyer acted very incorrectly, saying that the Prosecutor General did not react,” Stukāns said.
The Prosecutor General has admitted that there is no particular point in writing to him directly, “because unfortunately you will not be able to read all the letters, and besides, these submissions will still end up in the specific structural unit”.
A woman born in 1983 was killed on the 16th of April in the Jēkabpils region in front of her child and mother. The murder was committed by her ex-husband Gunārs Rusiņš, who threatened and harassed the woman for months. This was regularly reported to the police, but the woman didn’t receive protection.
Delfi reported that the fatal attack in April was not the first time Rusiņš attacked a woman with a knife. Her relatives said that another attack took place on the 18th of February, 2022. Rusiņš attacked the woman with a knife, which left cuts of the blade on her face and hands. Rusin was fined 500 euros for this.
The Prosecutor’s Office Law states that the Prosecutor General can be dismissed from office if it is found that he has committed a disgraceful act incompatible with his position. Such an examination can be initiated by the President of the Supreme Court on his own initiative, at the request of one-third of the members of the Saeima or the Council of Justice.
If the President of the Supreme Court, when initiating an investigation, comes to the conclusion that the presence of the Prosecutor General in office may interfere with the objective examination of the issue, he may remove the Prosecutor General from his post until the final decision is made, the law states.
The head of the State Police, Armands Ruks, has instructed to start an investigation to “make sure that the police officers have acted in accordance with the regulatory framework, sufficiently proactively and professionally”. The inspection is also carried out by the prosecutor’s office. The police have so far failed to find and arrest Rusiņš after the murder, but at the same time, it has not been ruled out that he committed suicide.
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