On 22 March, the Cabinet of Ministers approved the draft law “Amendments to the Law on Remuneration of Officials and Employees of State and Local Government Authorities”, which provides that officials of the Ministry of the Interior system institutions and the Prison Administration with special service ranks will receive an additional payment of 100 per cent of their hourly wage rate for performing official duties on public holidays.
The draft law has been elaborated in order to ensure the right of public officials to adequate remuneration for work on public holidays and to comply with the Constitutional Court’s judgment of 2 December 2021. The draft law provides for clarification of the Remuneration Law by stipulating that officials of the Ministry of the Interior system institutions and the Prison Administration with special service ranks shall receive an additional payment for working on public holidays in the amount of 100 per cent of the hourly rate of pay established for them. This provision is planned to enter into force on 1 July 2022.
The necessary funding for 2022 is estimated at EUR 316 625, while for 2023 and the following years the total necessary funding is EUR 5 144 993.
On 2 December 2021, the Constitutional Court concluded that the current provisions of the Remuneration Law, which do not provide for the right of officials of the Ministry of the Interior system institutions and the Prison Administration with special service ranks to receive appropriate remuneration for work on public holidays, are incompatible with Section 107 of the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia. The necessity of additional compensation for work on public holidays also follows from the practice of application of international law.