Scholarly record

THE RECOVERY OF COSTS FOR A STATE ENSURED DEFENDER IN LATVIA

V. Platpirs

Abstract

The Sections 85 and 368 of the Criminal Procedure Law of the Republic of Latvia [3] prescribes only several cases when a person can be exempted from payment for defence provided by the state in criminal procedure. Sometimes the defendant refuses from a defender by the moment he gets to know that by the process termination, he will be recovered a payment for the defence provided him by the state. For instance, a refusal from an advocate during the agreement process mainly occurs with an aim to exempt a particular person from the payment for defence provided by the state. The current situation in Latvia concerning the defence provided by the state and further collection of payment for provided defence could be figuratively designated as “an advocate loan”. It shall be indicated, that in case if a person is being sentenced, he or she is also recovered payment for the defence provided by the state. It shall be taken into account that, in the majority of cases, persons do not challenge their guilt; they are fighting for milder punishment. This means that they are being recovered the payment, except in those cases when a base for exemption from payment is established. This issue is very topical in Latvia, because during the past two years the process of recovery of payment for defence provided by the state was started. There are cases when the payment is being recovered without a reason. The aim of the paper is to give an insight into the current situation, the cases when the payment for defence provided by the state is being recovered after it is received and cases when a person is exempted from the payment, as well as proposals for possible solutions in some of the related issues.

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