Latvia | www.non-discrimination.net

Introduction

The information contained on this page represents the situation as of 1 January 2012 and is a summary of the country report produced by the country expert from the network. The summary can be downloaded here as well.

Contact:
Anhelita Kamenska
E-mail: angel@humanrights.org.lv

Country Context

Latvia is, and always has been, a multi-ethnic country, although the proportion of the different ethnic groups among its population has varied. Ethnic origin is recorded in the Population Register. It is based on the ethnicity of either of a person’s parents and can be changed upon reaching the age of majority by choosing the ethnicity of any grandparents; the entry of ethnicity in passports is optional.

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Main principles and definitions

The Labour Law, the Law on Social Security,[1] Law on the support to unemployed persons and job seekersand the Law on Consumer Rights Protection contain definitions of direct and indirect discrimination and harassment which were drafted based on those in the directives and comply with them; they also prohibit instruction to discriminate.

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Enforcing the law

There are a number of legal avenues for addressing cases of discrimination:

Courts of general jurisdiction; an increasing, but yet limited number of cases alleging discrimination have been decided by the courts, predominantly on the grounds of gender.
Constitutional Court; legislation which is allegedly discriminatory on the grounds of age has twice been challenged in it. In one of the cases, the age restriction for university teachers and higher administrative positions in scientific institutions was invalidated, while in the second case the age restriction for remaining in the civil service was allowed to stand.

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Main legislation

The cornerstone of the prohibition of discrimination is Article 91 of the Latvian Constitution providing, inter alia, that human rights shall be observed without discrimination of any kind. Thus, the Constitution outlaws all discrimination, but does not expressly state the grounds on which discrimination is prohibited. The Constitution is regarded as having direct effect, that is, it directly binds all public bodies, but it does not have horizontal effect. This means that while discrimination is illegal in the public sector even without any further laws, which are thus only needed to provide for sanctions and the enforcement of the principle of non-discrimination, in the private sector the introduction of special laws to outlaw discrimination is essential.

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Material scope

The Labour Law provides protection against all forms of discrimination (direct, indirect, harassment, instruction to discriminate and victimisation) in all aspects of employment relationships, both in the public and private sector, including state civil service relationships (yet excluding military service) and contract work of self-employed persons (in the latter case the protected grounds include only gender and racial and ethnic origin), including the establishment of such relationships, concerning inter alia gender, race, age, disability, religion and sexual orientation.[1]

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Equality bodies

Since March 2007 the tasks of the specialised body are performed by the Ombudsman’s Office which is entrusted with the task of promoting the observance of human rights, including the promotion of equal treatment – without listing the grounds of discrimination and thus encompassing all of them. Its functions include inquiring into any individual complaint related to human rights violation, as well as starting investigations on its own initiative, analyzing the observance of human rights and issuing surveys and reports.

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