Under Section 50.1(1), during the absence of the head or while the post is unfilled, the deputy head holds the same powers as the head, including decisions on the freezing of transactions.
The term of office ends when the head submits a resignation letter to the Speaker, while the new head is appointed by the Saeima, upon the recommendation of the Cabinet of Ministers, for a term of five years.
The head of the FID, Janis Platacis, is leaving his post on his own initiative, which means that the Service will temporarily remain without a permanently elected head, and the State must launch the full selection procedure for a new head from scratch. In the event of such a voluntary departure, the law provides for a simple mechanism: the term of office ends upon the submission of a resignation letter, while during the transition period the Service is led by the deputy head, who holds the same powers as the head. The direct legal question is the procedure by which the post is filled and who, during this period, legitimately issues decisions of the Service — this is governed by Section 50.1 of the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorism and Proliferation Financing and the Cabinet of Ministers Regulations on the Selection of Candidates for the Post of Head of the Financial Intelligence Service.
Section 50.1(1) of the Law provides that the Service is headed and represented by its head, and that in the event of his or her absence the duties of the head are performed by the deputy head, who holds the same powers as the head. This means that, until a new head is elected, one of the three deputies (Paulis Iļjenkovs, Kārlis Matisons or Marta Jaksona) may legitimately issue decisions such as an order to freeze a transaction or a request for information, powers granted to the Service under Section 51 of the Law. The grounds for the termination of the head's powers are established by law: the first is the case where the head has submitted to the Speaker a resignation letter; the other grounds (expiry of the term of office, retirement age, criminal conviction, revocation of the special permit, death) are not applicable in this situation. The election of a new head proceeds in the following sequence:
In practical terms, two developments should be expected in the near future: first, an official announcement as to which deputy will assume the duties of the head during the transition period — the law permits this without any additional confirmation, but public clarity is essential for the predictability of the Service's decisions. Second, a decision by the Cabinet of Ministers to announce an open competition, after which the commission will carry out the selection of candidates and only thereafter will the Saeima be able to elect a permanent head for a five-year term. This process is important for the subjects of the law — banks, insurers and others — because reports of suspicious transactions, freezing orders and information requests during the transition period will have to be handled under the deputy's powers, and the continuity of the enforcement of sanctions remains a state security priority. The candidate for the next head will also have to pass the full selection filter, including the reputation and state secret access requirements.
Correction. The prosecution's claim quoted in the article — that in drunk-driving cases "there is no provision anywhere allowing a person to be barred from driving a vehicle" — contradicts Section 30(1) of the Road Traffic Law, which directly regulates this situation. Likewise, the article's closing sentence, stating that driving rights will be revoked only upon a conviction, is imprecise — Section 30 permits the prohibition to be imposed already during the criminal proceedings, before the judgment. A more accurate formulation would be: deprivation of driving rights as a punishment is possible only by a conviction, whereas a prohibition on exercising driving rights as a procedural measure is available from the very beginning of the criminal proceedings under Section 30(1). The article mentioned this provision but did not explain the difference between the two institutions, leaving the reader with the impression that the law provides for no prohibition before a judgment.
Under Section 262.¹(1.¹) of the Criminal Law, driving exceeding 1.5 per mille is punishable by imprisonment for up to one year or probation supervision, with mandatory deprivation of the right to drive for five years.
Restriction of the right to drive before judgment is possible only as a prohibition on engaging in the activity where driving is the person's work duty; in all other cases, the right remains until a conviction.
Reinis Uzulnieks, caught driving a vehicle on 12 September with 3.09 per mille blood alcohol content, is legally entitled to continue driving, since the right to drive may be revoked only by an enforceable conviction, not at the pre-trial or early court stage. The essence of the report is the existence of this "gap" between the offence and the judgment. The legislature has criminalised driving exceeding 1.5 per mille: Section 262.¹(1.¹) of the Criminal Law provides for imprisonment for up to one year, or short-term imprisonment, or probation supervision, with deprivation of the right to drive for five years. The direct legal question is whether, before judgment, the right to drive can be restricted by way of a security measure; the answer, which the prosecution has also publicly given, is that criminal procedure provides only for a prohibition on engaging in an activity for persons for whom driving is a work duty, not a general driving ban.
A sentence under Section 262.¹(1.¹) of the Criminal Law inevitably includes deprivation of the right to drive for five years — in this offence, deprivation is a mandatory additional penalty. The alternative principal penalties range from probation supervision to imprisonment for one year. For driving with a concentration between 0.5 and 1.0 per mille, as well as up to 1.5 per mille, liability would be administrative under Sections 65(2) and (3) of the Road Traffic Law, but 3.09 per mille excludes that regime. The police referred the case to the Pierīga prosecution office by expedited procedure on 15 September, and in the prosecution's assessment a prohibition on engaging in the activity is inapplicable, because driving was not the person's work duty and he has no prior convictions. The vertical degrees of gravity are visible in Sections 262(2)–(5) of the Criminal Law: where drunk driving results in bodily injury to a victim or causes death, the penalty reaches imprisonment of up to fifteen years with deprivation of the right to drive for up to ten years — in Uzulnieks's case, these aggravating circumstances, according to the report, have not been established. A practical collateral risk: if an accident were to occur during this period, the insurer, under the Law on Compulsory Civil Liability Insurance of Owners of Motor Vehicles, may claim compensation for losses by way of recourse against the driver who drove the vehicle while intoxicated.
If the court convicts under Section 262.¹(1.¹) of the Criminal Law, the consequences will be: a principal penalty (up to one year of imprisonment or probation supervision) and mandatory deprivation of the right to drive for five years, which will take effect upon the judgment.
What will the new statutory framework for the assessment of children's early development and special needs look like once the amendments to the Child Rights Protection Law and the General Education Law enter into force, and how will the establishment of the state information system (BAASIK) change data exchange and the allocation of responsibilities among family physicians, educators and municipalities?
Legal basis: The evidence database contains no direct extracts of legal norms, so this analysis rests on the legislative process reported in the news item and on general principles of law. The report indicates that, as of 1 July 2028, the Child Rights Protection Law will establish a new procedure for assessing children's early development and special needs, imposing on the State and municipalities the duty to ensure an early developmental assessment from birth until enrolment in a pre-school education programme. The amendments to the General Education Law provide that an educational institution shall assess a learner's special needs from the age of three where no valid opinion of the pedagogical-medical commission is in force and the child is following a pre-school programme, with the methodology to be set out in Cabinet of Ministers regulations. Already as of 28 October 2026, the Child Rights Protection Law entrenches the status of the Unified Risk Analysis and Management Information System for supporting children's developmental needs as a state information system — this is significant because state information system status attracts the requirements of the Personal Data Processing Law and of the regulatory framework governing state administration information systems with respect to data processing and access.
Practical significance: For a practising lawyer, the principal risk lies in data processing: BAASIK will link sensitive health and education data (parent and teacher questionnaires, children's ability tests, physicians' assessments) within a single state system, so the legal basis for processing, access rights and data retention periods must be assessed already at the design stage. The second practical point concerns the allocation of responsibility: from 1 July 2028 the family physician will carry out screening between the child's first and third birthdays within the framework of preventive check-ups, while from the age of three the educator becomes involved; accordingly, municipal and educational institution contracts and internal documents must already now specify who is the data controller and who is the processor. The third point: until the new procedure is fully implemented, the existing framework will continue to apply (assessment from eighteen months and special needs assessment from the age of five), so in disputes over the provision of support measures during the 2026–2028 transition period, reference must be made to the norms in force rather than the new ones. Monitoring point: a pilot project in several municipalities at the end of this year, and the Cabinet of Ministers regulations on the assessment methodology, which must be issued before 1 July 2028.
How will EU legislation — the ESSPASS regulation, the "Skills Portability Act", the extension of ELA's powers, and amendments to Directive 2005/36/EC — change the procedures for recognition of qualifications and coordination of social protection for Latvian employers and skilled workers operating across borders?
Legal basis: The evidence provided contains no direct extracts of legal provisions, so this analysis rests on general principles of law and on the structure of the existing framework referred to in the report. At present, the recognition of professional qualifications is governed by Directive 2005/36/EC, which operates a "general recognition system" with automatic recognition applying only to seven professions (mainly in the medical field). This means that the holder of a diploma obtained in Latvia must undergo a national recognition procedure in another Member State, involving the submission of documents and compliance with deadlines. The coordination of social security is governed by Regulation (EC) No 883/2004, under which the A1 form certifies the applicable legislation for secondments and the EHIC provides health insurance cover — precisely these documents are being converted into digital format under the ESSPASS initiative, using the European Digital Identity Wallet. The five proposals described in the report are at an early stage of the legislative process: they still need to be adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the EU under the ordinary legislative procedure, so the specific obligations and deadlines are not yet final.
Practical significance: In practice, this means that Latvian employers seconding workers to other Member States must, for the time being, continue to use the paper A1 form and the EHIC — the digital versions will become mandatory only after the new regulations are adopted and once transitional periods, which have not yet been set, have elapsed. Representatives of regulated professions (for example, in healthcare, architecture and law) should prepare recognition applications in line with the existing logic of Directive 2005/36/EC, while monitoring whether the amendments shorten processing deadlines and digitise document handling. The extension of ELA's powers means that Latvian companies providing cross-border services or engaged in the temporary posting of labour will face an increased risk of inspections, so internal documentation on employment conditions should be kept in order now. Point for further monitoring: attention should be paid to the agendas of the European Parliament and the Council — following the official publication of the proposals on EUR-Lex and the first readings, it will become clear whether the text of Directive 2005/36/EC is being amended or separate acts are being adopted, at which point the Latvian authorities (for example, the competent recognition authority and the State Revenue Service) should begin preparing for implementation.
Point 18 — a person under 12 years of age must, during transport, wear a life jacket of appropriate size, and compliance with this obligation rests with the operator of the craft.
Sub-point 45.7.2.1 prohibits operating a craft where the blood alcohol concentration exceeds 0.5 per mille.
On vessels carrying children under 12 years of age, a life jacket is not a recommendation but a legal requirement, and compliance rests with the operator of the craft, not with the child's parents. The report on observations by an inspector of the Gulbene municipal police reflects a situation in which violations are primarily addressed through verbal warnings, yet the legal framework is considerably stricter. The direct legal question is the scope of the operator's safety duties on inland waters. The primary norms are the Cabinet of Ministers regulations on the traffic of vessels on inland waters, issued pursuant to Section 48.1 of the Maritime Administration and Marine Safety Law. The norms on municipal competence are also relevant: Section 48.1(2) permits municipalities to adopt binding regulations on additional conditions for navigation within their territory, subject to an opinion from the Maritime Administration. Consequently, the legal status of recreational users and anglers is not uniform across all lakes — additional restrictions may vary depending on the municipality.
The operator's duties before and during navigation derive from the following provisions of the regulations:
Adults must have a life jacket on board, but wearing it is not mandatory. Exceptions requiring adults to wear a life jacket apply to other activities: Point 45.8 (in the wording of Cabinet Regulation No. 508 of 16 August 2022) requires a life jacket for a person operating a personal watercraft (jet ski), a sailboard, or engaged in water skiing or similar water sports. The list of prohibitions in Point 21 broadens the scope of liability: navigation is prohibited with a craft that is not in proper technical condition (21.1), without a valid qualification document (21.4), exceeding the load capacity or the permitted number of persons (21.6), as well as exceeding the minimum speed near public bathing areas and endangering swimmers (21.8). The operator is also obliged to stop the craft and present documents upon the request of a competent authority (sub-point 45.6.2). The traffic of vessels is supervised, according to their competence, by the control services listed in Point 89 of the regulations (Point 7), and in performing their duties such services may deviate from certain requirements (Point 5). Regarding illegal nets, it must be noted that fishing regulations are not included in the sources provided. As a matter of law, an inflatable ring is not a life-saving appliance: Point 3.15 of the regulations defines a life jacket as an industrially manufactured jacket designed to keep a person afloat on the water.
Practical consequences for recreational users and anglers:
For municipalities, the situation entails two tasks: first, to assess the adoption of binding regulations on additional navigation conditions, obtaining an opinion from the Maritime Administration; second, to address the issue of access to the lakes. For anglers, it is relevant that setting nets in navigation channels is prohibited (Point 21.11), and the regime applicable to public lakes may differ from that applicable to non-public lakes. Further course of action: if the Gulbene Municipal Council decides to introduce additional navigation restrictions, the next step will be the draft municipal binding regulations accompanied by an opinion from the Maritime Administration.