The Prosecutor General's Office has submitted proposals to the Legal Commission of the Saeima to amend the draft law that expands the possibilities for reviewing decisions on the confiscation of property recognized as obtained through criminal means. According to Attorney General Armīns Meisters, the current version of the amendments, already supported by the parliament in the second reading, allows for the review of such decisions based on a wide range of "other circumstances." The Prosecutor's Office believes that without additional restrictions, this could lead to a mass review of cases whose decisions have become legally binding many years ago. To avoid such a situation, a transitional procedure is proposed. According to the initiative, applications for review based on new "other circumstances" can only be submitted for those cases whose decisions became effective after the relevant provision of the law came into force. At the same time, the Prosecutor General's Office proposes to maintain the possibility of resuming criminal proceedings in cases where a verdict of acquittal has been issued in the main criminal case from which materials on criminal property were previously separated. Another proposal concerns the distribution of workload within the Prosecutor's Office. Currently, only the senior prosecutor of the Department of Criminal Law handles cases based on newly discovered circumstances. Meisters suggests expanding the circle of authorized prosecutors so that staff from other divisions of the Prosecutor General's Office can be involved in this work if necessary. In fact, the Prosecutor's Office proposes not to eliminate the possibility of reviewing such cases but to make the mechanism more manageable to avoid a sharp increase in the number of applications and delays in the consideration of other criminal proceedings. The agency warns that without clear transitional norms, the courts and the Prosecutor's Office may face a large number of appeals regarding long-concluded cases. This will require additional human and financial resources and may increase the timeframes for considering other proceedings. The amendments, which have sparked discussion, also include other significant changes. In particular, the court will be able, in exceptional cases, to leave the property with a bona fide purchaser if returning the property to the original owner does not ensure a fair result. Additionally, the deputies have already supported proposals to allow the review of decisions on asset confiscation without time limits when new significant circumstances arise, as well as to permit lawyers to submit relevant applications on behalf of property owners. Now, the Prosecutor General's Office calls on the Legal Commission of the Saeima to include the clarifications it proposed in the draft law before its consideration in the third reading.
