Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics has proposed that the president of Latvia be given the right to nominate candidates for the governorship of the Bank of Latvia, the country’s ombudsman and its auditor general, leaving confirmation of said nominees up to Parliament.
Presidential adviser Martins Dregeris told the LETA news agency that on Tuesday, Rinkevics signed draft amendments that were sent to the Saeima [Parliament] Presidium to the legislative rules of procedure, as well as draft amendments to three laws which regulate the selection and nomination of candidates for the various offices.
President Rinkevics has proposed that the procedure for nominating the officials be entrusted to the president, as opposed to 10 members of the Saeima, as is the case now. That would in no way affect the right of the Saeima to take final decisions on various nominees.
Dregeris says that this solution would not upset the system of checks and balances between branches of state power, while also allowing the president to pick the most suitable candidates for various jobs through the use of formal and informal consultations. This, in turn, would reduce the prevalence of political considerations over the professionalism of each candidate.
In his letter to the speaker, Rinkevics argues that the recent process of nominating and approving the Bank of Latvia council was excessively long, incomprehensible to the public and fragmented. The President adds that it is clear that the legal framework for the nomination of such candidates did not provide sufficient guarantees on preventing such shortcomings.
Rinkevics feels that such structural problems cannot strengthen public confidence in the process or the candidates who are nominated. The president argues that changes are needed in the procedure for selecting and nominating certain officials if such situations are to be prevented from recurring.
In an annotation accompanying the draft legislation, the president’s office says that the law defines high professional criteria for top political and professional officials in Latvia – the ombudsman, the auditor general and the governor of the Bank of Latvia. It is, therefore, important to ensure that the political components of the process do not overshadow and assessment of professional criteria.
The possibility to nominate several candidates to a politically professional post gives more weight to political considerations, and that, in turn, creates the risk of fragmentation and the risk that discussions about political considerations unduly call into question the professional suitability of candidates for each post, the annotation states.
The president is hoping to come with legislative initiatives concerning the procedure for organising and holding referendums by the end of March.
Source: BNS
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