FIFTH SECTION
CASE OF PĪLĀGS v. LATVIA
(Application no. 66897/13)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
3 March 2022
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Pīlāgs v. Latvia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Lətif Hüseynov, President,
 Mārtiņš Mits,
 Mattias Guyomar, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 66897/13) against the Republic of Latvia lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 15 October 2013 by a Latvian national, Mr Alvis Pīlāgs, born in 1971 and living in Riga (“the applicant”) who was represented by Mr O. Ondrups, a lawyer practising in Kandava;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Latvian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms K. Līce;
the parties’ observations. Having deliberated in private on 3 February 2022,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the applicant’s complaint under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that the domestic courts did not properly examine his allegations of incitement in the administrative offence proceedings against him. 2. The applicant, a State official employed by the State Revenue Service, was subjected, with his colleague I.V., to an undercover operation (operatīvais eksperiments), organised by the Bureau for the Prevention and Combating of Corruption (Korupcijas novēršanas un apkarošanas birojs – “the KNAB”) and approved by the prosecutor’s office. At the request of a private person acting on the KNAB’s instructions, the applicant and I.V. delivered a large sum of cash from Estonia to Latvia and received 500 euros (EUR) each for those “services”. The KNAB instituted criminal proceedings but those proceedings were later discontinued in relation to the delivery of cash as no elements of a crime were present. The KNAB then instituted administrative offence proceedings in which he was held liable for breaching restrictions imposed on State officials, as he had not obtained prior permission to carry out other paid activities in addition to his duties as a State official. He was fined 65 Latvian lati (around EUR 92). The domestic courts in the administrative offence proceedings examined the case twice and upheld the fine imposed on the applicant. In the first round of proceedings, the appellate court quashed the first-instance court’s ruling and sent the case back for a fresh examination. In the second round of proceedings, by a final decision of 15 April 2013, the appellate court confirmed the reasoning of the first-instance court without assessing the applicant’s allegations of incitement.

Outcome for Article 6: violation