Riga Vidzeme District Court has overturned the Procurement Monitoring Bureau's decision to fine State Police Chief Ints Kuzis for making a prepayment to an automobile dealer that supplied vehicles for the State Police.
The court concluded that, while Kuzis' actions could be interpreted as a violation of the Administrative Violations Code, his decision was utterly necessary and therefore justified.
Kuzis had argued that with Latvia's EU Presidency looming in 2015 and with police desperate for new vehicles to perform their duties properly, he had no option but to bend the rules.
The Vidzeme District Court's decision may be appealed to Riga Regional Court within ten days.
As previously reported by LSM, the Procurement Monitoring Bureau found Kuzis guilty of violating the Administrative Violations Code in signing a contract on the procurement of motor vehicles for the State Police, and making a prepayment for the vehicles. Kuzis appealed the bureau's decision to Riga Vidzeme District Court.
The Procurement Monitoring Bureau claims that Kuzis, in signing the contract with a company called Auto Blitz, also decided to make a prepayment - 20 percent of the contract amount. The bureau believes that, in doing so, Kuzis violated the law.
In his petition to the court, Kuzis emphasized that he has not done anything against the law. He believes that the Procurement Monitoring Bureau has not evaluated the State Police's deal with Auto Blitz on its merits but made a formal conclusion. Not a single cent has been lost, Kuzis claimed.
The contract for delivery of forty Opel Insignia automobiles for the State Police was worth approximately €1.3 million. The police took delivery of the first automobiles in January 2015.
Kuzis denied having any personal interest in the deal. He said he had opted for making the prepayment seeing that the company was short of funds and would not otherwise be able to equip the automobiles with the necessary police equipment on schedule.
