IMPACT OF THE SUPREME COURT’S CASE -LAW ON THE REALIZATION OF PROCEDURAL AND SUBSTANTIVE RIGHTS IN CIVIL PROCEDURE; SPECIFIC ASPECTS IN LATVIAN CIVIL PROCEDURE

Abstract

According to the Civil procedure law of the Republic of Latvia, Section 5, point Nr.6:
Upon applying legal norms, a court shall consider the case law. This regulation is widely has
been used by Latvian judges, making judgments on the merits and/or resolving procedural
issues during the civil procedure. The legal doctrine says that applying case law is important
to keep uniformity for case solutions and predictability. For Latvia is characteristic such issues
as changeable case law. Important question is – the base of changeability and consequences,
and how to realize predictability? Applying case law, we can find the positive and negative
aspects of the person’s (litigants) substantive and/or procedural rights. Those aspects shall be
analyzed to find how to remove the negative ones and their influence. The author analyses such
stressed decisions of Latvia’s Supreme Court Senate of Civil department as 17th December
2019, case Nr. 259/2019 and 29th April 2020, case Nr. SKC-97/2020 and in the scope of
this the potential future development of the civil procedure regulation and litigants’ ability
to realize their procedural rights. For research, the author uses methods such as historical,
analytical, comparative method, descriptive, critical analysis, and problem analysis methods.
The article describes the serious problems relating to case law’s impact on procedural and
substantive fairness which is a part of the right to a fair trial.