Judge of the Criminal Affairs Division of the Riga Regional Court Zigmund Dundurs has proposed amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law and called for a review of the proposed regulation on the return of property obtained through criminal means, LETA reports.
The judge notes that the bill provides for significant changes to the existing approach, as it will impose on the criminal court the obligation to decide in each specific case whether to return the criminally acquired property to the victim or to a bona fide purchaser. According to Dundurs, such a choice is not a function of the criminal court, as it requires rather a philosophical than a criminal-legal weighing of rights, and no criteria are established in the law for making such a decision.
He warns that the regulation may create legal uncertainty and jeopardize the principle of public trust, which the Constitutional Court has previously recognized as one of the foundations of the stability of civil turnover. Pointing to the risk that courts may make different decisions in similar cases, Dundurs emphasizes that this is a fundamental issue of legal policy that should be addressed at the legislative level, not by the court.
The judge proposes an alternative solution — to maintain the basic principle that property obtained through criminal means is returned to the victim, while the state compensates the bona fide purchaser for the value of the property and later recovers this amount from the guilty party. According to Dundurs, such an approach would strengthen legal stability and better protect the principle of public trust.
In his proposal, he calls for the addition of a new provision to Article 360 of the Criminal Procedure Law, which would provide a mechanism for state compensation for bona fide purchasers if the property is returned to the victim.
As reported by LETA, members of the Saeima have conceptually supported amendments to the Criminal Procedure Law, which stipulate that the court may, in exceptional cases, decide whether to leave the property in fraud cases with the original owner or a bona fide purchaser.
Currently, the law stipulates that property obtained through criminal means and found with a third party must be returned to its owner or lawful possessor. However, as noted in the annotation to the bill, atypical situations occur in practice where such imperative regulation does not ensure a fair resolution of criminal-legal relations, as the rights of the bona fide purchaser may be disproportionately affected.
To prevent such disproportionate consequences, the bill provides that in exceptional cases, the court may leave the property in the ownership of the bona fide purchaser if the ownership is registered in the public register. The court will have to make such a decision with a special justification as to why returning the property to the victim in the specific case would not ensure a fair outcome.
The annotation emphasizes that the aim of the bill is not to weaken the protection of the victim but to strengthen the role of the court in ensuring a fair and proportionate decision. It also notes that imperative norms do not always allow for an effective assessment of complex factual circumstances, while dispositive regulation provides the court with flexibility, simultaneously preventing arbitrariness, as deviation from the general principle must be legally justified.
The bill also provides for the exclusion of a provision in the transitional provisions of the Criminal Procedure Law that required the Cabinet of Ministers to develop a mechanism to protect the interests of bona fide purchasers, as the primary means of protection is considered to be the recovery of damages in civil proceedings from the accused or convicted person.
The annotation states that the implementation of the amendments will not affect the state budget and is in line with Latvia's international obligations in the field of human rights and the rule of law.
