On Thursday, the 12th of December, the Latvian Saeima passed in the final reading amendments to the Criminal Law that provide the discontinuation of suspended prison sentence as a form of penalty.
Amendments to the law were developed with the aim of improving the transition period included in the Criminal Law that is intended to discontinue the suspended prison sentence as a form of penalty. Instead of that, it will be allowed to apply probation monitoring, including for adults who had committed crimes before the 31st of December 2024 but have not yet been convicted for them.
The changes approved by the Saeima exclude one of the transitional provisions of the Criminal Law, as its content overlaps with another provision that will come into force on the 1st of January 2025.
Both regulations provide that probation supervision for adult persons will commence after the 31st of December, 2024. This situation appeared because two draft laws with similar content were viewed at the same time in the Saeima.