Overview:

• State privilege is bestowed to Lutherans, Catholics, Latvian Orthodox Christians, Old Believers, Baptises, Methodists, Seventh-day Adventists and Jews; other groups are excluded from the benefits that these communities receive.

• Recognition and registration are differentiated but are misused to support a system of vertical recognition.

• Informational requirements for the registration process are intrusive.

• The mandate for registered groups to submit annual reports to the government is a further demonstration of the country’s restrictivity.

• There exists one law for these eight recognised groups and another law dealing with all other unrecognised groups referred to as religious organisations.

• Recognition and registration are to some degree differentiated which is preferable.

• There are many unnecessary restrictions placed on unregistered groups.

Positive elements:

• There exists an ombudsperson for the investigation of human rights abuse cases.

Recommendations:

• Re-establish the recognition system so that it is inclusive of all belief systems.

• Revoke all restrictive policies within the system identified in the above analysis.

• To become dynamic, the government would need to establish a recognition agency to manage the recognition system, after which it would relinquish its control to ensure the autonomy of the agency.