News from the Ombudsman’s Office: June 2024

News and events of the Ombudsman’s Office in June 2024 (information in links available in Latvian)

The Ombudsman asks the Prime Minister to eliminate the bureaucratic approach in the operation of the National Centre for Education

The Ombudsman has asked the Prime Minister Evika Siliņa, calling for an urgent solution to be found and for secondary school centralised examination certificates to be issued to pupils who have turned to the Ministry of Education and Science or the National Centre for Education with a reasoned request to receive the document sooner than the Centre has planned to issue it. On 21 June, the Ombudsman received a letter from the National Centre for Education informing that, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science, certificates for individual pupils would be prepared as of 3 July and published in the Information System for State Examinations.

The Ombudsman replies: no books, no transcript?

Can the school management play according to their own rules and say that if the student has not returned all the books to the school library, the student does not get their transcript? The Ombudsman stresses that the laws and regulations do not provide for the right of an educational institution to detain a document (transcript) due to unsettled obligations, for example, if the student has lost a textbook issued by an educational institution.

The Ombudsman monitors the elections in State social care centres

From 6 to 8 June, employees of the Ombudsman’s Office participated in the observation of the elections to the European Parliament by visiting the state social care centres and polling stations visited by the clients of the care centres.

Compensation for interest education should not be taxed

The Ombudsman calls on the Saeima to amend the Law on Personal Income Tax so that local government compensation to parents for pre-school, primary, secondary, vocational or interest education of children is not subject to personal income tax. Settlements between municipalities could be an alternative, in which case parents would not first have to pay for the interest education themselves and the municipality would then have to compensate them.