Presumptions Instead of Evidence: Access to Justice in Latvia

This working paper examines a Latvian court decision refusing to exempt an unemployed applicant from an €80 court security deposit. The decision acknowledges that the applicant had official job-seeker status and only €0.13 in his bank account, yet concludes that these facts are insufficient because a person "cannot live for almost six months without any income." The paper examines three legal issues: • assessment of evidence; • interpretation of "material assets and total income" under Latvian Civil Procedure Law; • effective access to justice under Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The publication argues that judicial findings concerning financial capacity should be based on evidence rather than presumptions.