Report on the year 2014 By the Ombudsman of the Republic of Latvia Riga, 2015 2 3 Table of contents Table of contents .................................................................................................................................. 3 Abbreviations used in the Text ............................................................................................................. 8 Introduction by the Ombudsman.......................................................................................................... 9 I Rights of Children............................................................................................................................ 10 1. Current Topics of the Rights of Children Division – Statistics and Overall Review ................. 10 1.1. Relevant topics in 2014 ....................................................................................................... 10 1.2. The Scheduled Tasks in 2015 .............................................................................................. 15 2. Promoting the Right of Children to grow up in Family ............................................................. 16 2.1. Ensuring the right of children to comprehensive development in the conditions of municipal institutional care ........................................................................................................ 16 2.2. Municipal support to guardians and foster families ............................................................ 25 3. The Right of Children of Imprisoned Persons to Access to their Parents .................................. 38 4. Preventing Violence at Educational Establishments .................................................................. 41 II Civil and Political Rights ............................................................................................................... 43 1. Provision of the Rights of Persons with Mental Impairments ................................................... 43 1.1. Amendments to the Medical Treatment Law ...................................................................... 43 1.2. Processing of Sensitive Personal Data ................................................................................ 43 1.3. Observation of Elections at Psycho-Neurological Hospitals .............................................. 43 1.4. Practical Application of the Limitations of Capacity .......................................................... 45 2. Protection of Prisoners at Closed Type Facilities ...................................................................... 47 2.1. Prohibition of Unhuman and Humiliating Treatment ......................................................... 48 2.2. The Right of Prisoners to Private Life ................................................................................ 51 2.3. Access to Information ......................................................................................................... 52 2.4. Compliance of the fees for services provided at prison facilities with the principle of good governance ................................................................................................................................. 53 2.5. The Right of Prisoners to Vote at Municipal Elections ....................................................... 54 2.6. Health Care of Imprisoned Persons .................................................................................... 55 2.7. Release from Prison ............................................................................................................ 56 3. Right to Fair Court ..................................................................................................................... 58 3.1. Access to Court ................................................................................................................... 58 3.2. Reasonable Period of Hearing ............................................................................................. 59 3.3. Qualitative and Effective Defense ...................................................................................... 61 4 3.4. Hearing of Administrative Offences ................................................................................... 63 3.5. Hearing by Video Conference ............................................................................................. 65 3.6. Opinions Issued to the Constitutional Court ....................................................................... 66 3.7. Efficiency of the Mechanism of State Responsibility in the Event of Infringement of Human Rights ............................................................................................................................ 69 4. Guarantees to Protection of the Rights of Persons in their Contacts to Police .......................... 72 4.1. Effectiveness of Investigation by by Police Staff ............................................................... 72 4.2. Living Conditions at the Short-Term Detention Facilities of the State Police and at the Court Escort Premises ................................................................................................................ 73 4.3. Pretrial Investigation in Criminal Proceedings ................................................................... 74 4.4. Administrative Offence Proceedings .................................................................................. 75 5. Efficiency of Protection of Private and Family Life .................................................................. 76 5.1. Anonymous Comments on the Internet Injurious to the Person’s Esteem and Dignity ...... 76 5.2. Improvement of Legal Acts in the Context of Video Surveillance ..................................... 77 5.3. The Right to Register Marriage with Foreigners Serving Sentence at Penal Institutions ... 78 6. Freedom of Assembly and Association ...................................................................................... 80 7. Supervision of the Removal Process of Foreign Nationals ........................................................ 80 III Social, Economic and Culture Rights ........................................................................................... 85 1. The Right to Social Security ...................................................................................................... 85 1.1. On Amendments to the Law on State Pensions .................................................................. 87 1.2. On amendments to the Cabinet Regulations No. 299 of 30 March 2010 Regarding the Recognition of a Family or Person Living Separately as Needy ............................................... 90 1.3. On the Necessary Amendments to Legal Acts .................................................................... 92 1.4. On exclusion of premial payments from the calsulation of the average wage contributions for the purpose of the amount of social allowance .................................................................... 93 1.5. On separating the income of a self-employed person from the income taken into account for determining the person’s financial condition for the purposes of social aid ........................ 94 1.6. Insufficient or Inferior Social Work .................................................................................... 95 1.7. On Substantiation of the Requirement for the Services of Assistant in Case of Persons with the 1st Group Disabilities Subject to Continuous Care .............................................................. 96 1.8. On the Inspections Conducted by the Ombudsman at State Social Care Centers for Persons with Mental Impairments ........................................................................................................... 97 2. The Right to Housing ................................................................................................................. 99 2.1. Assistance by Municipalities in Housing Matters ............................................................. 100 2.2. Quality of housing offered by municipalities.................................................................... 101 2.3. Waste Management Fees Charged in Multi-Residential Houses ...................................... 101 5 2.4. Balancing of the Rights of House Owners and Tenants .................................................... 105 2.5. On compliance of the first SET tence of Section 8 of the Law on Lease of Residential Premises with the Satversme.................................................................................................... 107 2.6. Rights of the tenants of denationalized buildings ............................................................. 109 3. The Right to Health .................................................................................................................. 112 4. The Right to Property ............................................................................................................... 113 4.1. On proportionality of the obligation imposed on house owners to keep clean the adjacent territory..................................................................................................................................... 113 4.2. On the obligation posed on the owners of small HESs to pay nature resource tax .......... 116 4.3. On imposing subsidized energy tax to the income gained from the mandatory procurement .................................................................................................................................................