| dc.description.abstract | The diploma paper „Parliamentary inviolability: its limits and problematic issues” deals with analysis of the development of parliamentary inviolability as well as the most essential legal problems which have arisen during the implementation of this institute in Latvia.
In this paper a lot of attention is paid to the problems related with the mutual interrelation of Articles 29 and 30 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia, which has a vital meaning regarding the question whether the law enforcement bodies without a special decision taken by Saeima have the rights to arrest or otherwise limit the freedom of the member of Saeima if according to the Article 30 of the Constitution Saeima has allowed to start a criminal prosecution against the respective deputy. In the paper author also analyses the judgment made by Common assembly of the Senate in 1928, where the Senate gave a new interpretation of Article 29 and 30 of the Constitution. This interpretation was opposite to the previous practice and provided that a separate decision of Saeima for arresting a deputy is not necessary if the Saeima has previously allowed to start a criminal prosecution against the respective member of the Saeima.
The author of this work presents a thesis that the interpretation given by the Senate, as well as the amendments of 1998 to the Rules of procedure of the Saeima, which correspond to this explanation of the Senate, contradicts with the conditions of Article 29.
By researching the development of parliamentary inviolability, changes into understanding of this institute as well as tendencies of the latest years in other European countries, author expresses an opinion that the parliamentary inviolability provided in the Constitution is too wide and does not correspond to the requirements of a modern constitutional country. In order to solve this problem author suggests first of all to make changes to the Criminal Law by providing that the limitation of criminal liability is suspended at the moment when Saeima has rejected the draft decision on starting criminal prosecution against the respective deputy until the expiration of the deputy’s mandate; secondly, to exclude from the Article 30 of the Constitution immunity against the administrative violations committed by deputies; and thirdly, the author considers that it is also necessary to revoke a provision of the Article 30 of the Constitution which provides that decision of the Saeima is necessary for starting a criminal prosecution against a deputy, in such a way narrowing the inviolability to the guaranties provided in the Constitution Article 29. | en_US |
