Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Prosecutor General Juris Stukāns and State Police Chief Armands Ruks, Levits said the trio had discussed the circumstances of the murder and "why the state, in fact, allowed it".
"In my opinion there are several things we should think about," said Levits, listing the first of these as the fact that the victim had done everything available to her under the law to seek protection, but this had proven to be inadequate to protect her from her killer.
"From her side, she did everything [she could]... all the mistakes were on the side of the state," Levits said.
Offcials had "not done everything that was possible" in performing their duties, and there were "systemic questions" as a result, the President maintained.
In addition he said that the existing legal system did not give the police sufficient powers to prevent such situations and that this represented a flaw in the criminal-political system which might be addressed by lawmakers and the legal profession. The constitution is supposed to protect Latvian citizens, but in this case it did not happen, he said.
"Therefore I think it is important to think about this approach in general and also to quite concretely think about adjustments to the criminal law," Levits said. The use of electronic tagging would be one approach he was inclined to support, he said. He also recommended that lawmakers could consider allowing preventive custody, for example in cases where "psychopathic" tendencies are evident.
As previously reported by LSM, in Jēkabpils in mid-April, Leons Rusiņš stabbed a woman in front of her child and mother after months of threats and harassment.
Although the woman had repeatedly turned to the police for help and 18 criminal proceedings had previously been initiated against her killer, the tragedy was not prevented. The perpetrator did not attend his court hearings and the police could not find him. He still has not been found, three weeks after the murder despite an ongoing nationwide manhunt.
