The judicial agency LETA found out that the district court, after examining the appeals of the plaintiff and the defendant regarding the judgment of the Riga City Court of August 1 last year, decided to partially satisfy the claim, as several significant violations of the employment contract termination procedure were found on the part of the employer.
With the judgment of the Riga Regional Court, the dismissal of the employer of the academy dated April 9, 2024 was declared invalid and the plaintiff was ordered to be reinstated as an associate professor at the Department of Composition.
After the verdict came into force, it was decided to recover the average earnings for the time of forced absence from work and the lawyer’s expenses, which is a total of 19,429 euros, from the academy in favor of the employee.
The district court held that it was not purposeful to order immediate execution of the judgment in this part, as requested by the plaintiff, and denied it. On the other hand, when deciding on the determination of the term of voluntary execution of the judgment, the regional court recognized that it should be determined shorter than the maximum prescribed by law.
It was also decided that court costs for the benefit of the state should be recovered from the defendant.
The action is dismissed in so far as it sought to set aside the order of suspension and to recover the average earnings for the period during which the claimant was suspended.
The regional court came to the conclusion that the suspension of the plaintiff from work, in accordance with the legitimate goal – the protection of the defendant’s reputation and student interests, including private life – in the opinion of the regional court, is a proportionate measure, and the order cannot be recognized as invalid.
The judgment can be appealed within 30 days through the cassation procedure in the Supreme Court.
JVLMA does not agree with such a court ruling and will appeal it, LETA agency found out at the university.
As reported, Kronlak was one of the JVLMA lecturers who was fired for allegedly sexually harassing female students.
As previously reported by Latvian Television (LTV), it was confirmed by an anonymous student that the lecturer had been in contact with her for several years, fragments of the correspondence between the two in 2019 were also made public. In February 2024, the Ethics Commission sentenced Kronlak to a disciplinary penalty, but a month later he was suspended.
JVLMA’s lawyer Tatjana Jurkeviča told LTV that the disciplinary punishment was imposed when JVLMA had only one student’s testimony, but the dismissal followed after learning that the violations had been several and over many years.
Kronlak believes that the suspension from work for possible sexual harassment of female students was illegal, as he had already received a punishment for inappropriate communication with female students, LTV previously reported.
The problem of sexual harassment in educational institutions was brought up by the LTV program “Kultūrshoks”, which received a total of seven JVLMA students’ testimonies about the actions of individual lecturers.
A total of two lecturers were suspended at JVLMA for possible sexual harassment of female students – Kronlaks and the head of the Department of Ancient Music, Māris Kupčs, who is currently also suing the academy. The court of first instance completely rejected the claim of former JVLMA lecturer Kupča for reinstatement
In mid-March, the JVLMA council also expressed no confidence in JVLMA rector Guntars Prānis and called on him to resign from his post. A month later, Prānis announced his resignation. Ilona Meija was elected as the new rector of JVLMA.
Last March, the police started criminal proceedings in connection with the information about the alleged harassment of female students by the academy’s teachers. The Public Relations Department of the State Police told the LETA agency that the investigation in the criminal process continues, “and there is progress”. Currently, the police did not provide more information.
(Added comment of the Latvian Music Academy of Jāzeps Vītolas in paragraph 10.)