Friday, 25 November, marked the coming into force of the guilty verdict for Jurmala City Council chairman Gatis Truksnis. This means he will be removed from office and the city council.
Truksnis lost his mandate due to Section 3 of the Law on the Status of the Councillor of the Local Government Council. Ministry of Environment Protection and Regional Development, which supervises the work of municipal councils, promised to provide more comments on this situation after studying the full text of the verdict.
On Friday, 25 November, Truksnis announced he completely disagrees with the verdict. He said he has never forged any documents, nor has he caused any losses to the municipality or the state. He claims none of the accusations against him are justified. The now formed head of the city council said the verdict of the court of law prohibits him from taking office as Jurmala City Council member in its current term for his mission to Daugavpils of 2016 that never happened.
He promised to work in the interest of residents of Jurmala and to run in the next municipal elections.
Section 9 of the Law on the Election of Local Government Councils states that it is not allowed to nominate and elect to local governments persons who are serving a sentence in places of deprivation of liberty and persons ‘who have been convicted of a serious or especially serious crime, except for the persons who have been exonerated or whose criminal record has been extinguished or set aside’.
Truksnis may be replaced by Guntars Anspoks from the Union of Greens and Farmers/Latvian Green Party in the city council. Rita Sproģe from the Union of Greens and Farmers/Latvian Green Party may be elected as Truksnis replacement as Jurmala City Council chairperson, according to unofficial information.
Sproģe confirmed to LETA – if her colleagues pick her, she will run as candidate. ‘I will have support from the Union of Greens and Farmers in this case,’ said the deputy. The party has eight out of 15 seats in Jurmala City Council. This would be enough for her to be elected.
Election of a new chairman is planned for the next meeting of the city council, which is scheduled for 21 December. Until a new mayor is elected, the city council will be led by Sproģe. Truksnis will continue working in the administration as the chairperson’s advisor.
On Friday, 25 November, the Supreme Court’s Criminal Affairs Department decided to keep the verdict made by Riga Regional Court on 29 November 2021 in force. This verdict states Gatis Truksnis is guilty of service forgery. This means the verdict in accordance with which Truksnis and his office manager Ingrīda Vilkārse are found guilty of service forgery. Truksnis is sentenced to a fine of EUR 5 000 and Vilkārse – to a fine of EUR 2 500.
The court of first instance initially failed to find elements of offence, so both were acquitted. The court of appeal later cancelled this verdict and imposed a guilty verdict instead. The Supreme Court decided to maintain this verdict in force on Friday.
Truksnis, as a state official, used the services of another official and involved them in a criminal act without them knowing.
The accused city council chairman’s office manager organised the forgery.
The court of appeal found that the mission order included false information about Jurmala mayor’s plan to go on a mission to Daugavpils. After concluding that, in accordance to Section 327 of the Criminal Law, the order detailing the city council chairman’s mission to Daugavpils on 26 April 2016 is a document that provides rights, the court of appeal concluded that the document was composed in accordance with requirements of the Law on Legal Force of Documents and was registered in the electronic document management or accounting system.
The court’s verdict notes that regardless of whether or not content of the document was falsified fully or partially, it is still believed distortion of contents of a document has taken place.
According to the accusation, in order to hide his unjustified absence, Truksnis agreed with Vilkārse to compose a document with false information to cover it up.