Egils Levits

Egils Levits was born on June 30, 1955, in Riga, then the capital of the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic. His father, Jonass Levits, was a Latvian Jewish engineer, and his mother, Ingeborga, came from a Latvian family. Growing up in an intellectually engaged household during the Soviet occupation shaped his early sense that Latvian statehood had been interrupted rather than extinguished ^[1].

In 1972 the family received permission to emigrate and settled in West Germany, part of a small stream of departures that Soviet authorities allowed in that period. The teenage Levits finished his schooling in Münster, where a Latvian gymnasium served the exile community and kept the language, history, and legal traditions of the interwar republic alive among children of the diaspora ^[1][2].

He went on to the University of Hamburg, where he studied law and later political science, completing degrees in both fields. This dual training in German legal doctrine and political theory became the foundation of his later work, and his fluency in German legal culture would prove useful when Latvia rebuilt its institutions on continental European models ^[2].

During the 1980s Levits worked in West Germany as a lawyer and academic, holding research and teaching positions connected to the University of Kiel and other institutions while remaining active in Latvian exile organizations. When Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms opened space for national movements in the Baltic republics, he moved quickly from commentary to participation ^[2][3].

He joined the Popular Front of Latvia, the mass movement that pressed for autonomy and then for full independence. His legal training made him valuable in a struggle that was fought as much with constitutional arguments as with street demonstrations. Levits contributed to the drafting of the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia, adopted by the Supreme Council on May 4, 1990. The declaration's central legal idea, that the Latvian state of 1918 had continued to exist under international law despite fifty years of occupation, reflected the doctrine of state continuity that Levits championed throughout his career ^[3][4].

After independence was secured in August 1991, he entered public service directly. He was Latvia's ambassador to Germany and Switzerland in the early 1990s, then returned to Riga to serve as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice from 1993 to 1994 in the government of Valdis Birkavs, having been elected to the 5th Saeima with the Latvian Way party ^[3][4].

The longest chapter of the Egils Levits biography unfolded not in Latvian politics but on the bench of two of Europe's most important courts. In 1995 he became the first judge elected in respect of Latvia to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, a post he held until 2004. During those years the court handled early cases arising from the post-Soviet transition, including disputes over citizenship, property restitution, and the rights of Russian speakers in the Baltic states ^[2][5].

When Latvia joined the European Union in May 2004, Levits moved from Strasbourg to Luxembourg as Latvia's first judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union. He served there for fifteen years, participating in judgments that shaped EU law on data protection, citizenship, and the internal market. Colleagues knew him as a judge with a strong theoretical bent who wrote extensively on legal philosophy and the idea of the democratic state governed by law ^[2][5].

He never fully left Latvian constitutional debates. In 2014 he was the principal author of the new preamble to the Satversme, Latvia's 1922 constitution. The preamble, adopted by the Saeima that June, defines Latvia as a nation state founded on the Latvian language, culture, and Christian and European values, and it generated lively public discussion about identity and inclusion before its adoption ^[4][6].

On May 29, 2019, the Saeima elected Levits President of Latvia with 61 votes in the 100 seat parliament, a comfortable margin by the standards of Latvian presidential contests. He took the oath of office on July 8, 2019, becoming the first Latvian head of state drawn from the country's top European judicial ranks and, as observers noted, the first with a Jewish family background ^[6][7].

His term coincided with a run of crises. The Covid 19 pandemic reached Latvia in early 2020, and Levits used the presidency's convening power to back emergency legislation while insisting that restrictions remain proportionate and time limited, arguments that drew directly on his judicial experience. He also promoted a package of what he called belonging initiatives, including a law establishing May 9 as a day of remembrance for victims of Russia's war in Ukraine and support for a state language policy in schools ^[6][7].

Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 dominated the second half of his presidency. Levits became one of the more forceful Baltic voices calling for tribunals to prosecute the crime of aggression, for expanded sanctions, and for the removal of Soviet era monuments, including the large Victory Monument in Riga, which was demolished in August 2022. He framed these steps as the completion of the decolonization of Latvian public space ^[7][8].

In May 2023, facing an uncertain vote count in the Saeima, he withdrew his candidacy for a second term. Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs was elected in his place, and Levits left office on July 8, 2023, exactly four years after his inauguration ^[8].

Levits is married to Andra Levite, a physician who practiced as a gynecologist in Germany before becoming first lady. The couple met in the Latvian exile community and have two adult children, Linda and Miks, both raised between Germany and Latvia ^[1][7].

He is often described as a scholar who happened into high office. He has published widely on constitutional theory, the continuity of the Latvian state, and the concept of a national yet open democracy, and he speaks Latvian, German, English, French, and Russian. Friends and critics alike remark on his professorial style: careful, precise, and more at home in a seminar than at a campaign rally ^[2][6].

After leaving the presidency, Levits returned to academic and advisory work rather than party politics. He accepted a professorship linked to the University of Latvia, resumed lecturing on European and constitutional law, and continued to comment publicly on support for Ukraine and on accountability for Russian aggression ^[8].

He has remained a fixture at conferences on state continuity and the rule of law, subjects on which he is regarded as one of the leading Latvian authorities. In recognition of his service, he holds high state decorations from Latvia and several other European countries, including the Order of the Three Stars, Latvia's highest civilian honor ^[4][8].

For readers asking who was Egils Levits, or rather who he is, since he remains an active public intellectual, the answer spans three distinct arenas: the independence movement, the European judiciary, and the presidency. Few individuals have left fingerprints on so many of the legal documents that define modern Latvia, from the 1990 independence declaration to the 2014 constitutional preamble ^[3][4].

Among Egils Levits achievements, his judicial career carries particular weight. Nearly a quarter century on the Strasbourg and Luxembourg benches gave Latvia, a small state that had only just regained its sovereignty, a sustained voice in shaping European human rights and EU law. His writings on state continuity provided the intellectual scaffolding for Latvia's position that it was never lawfully part of the Soviet Union, a doctrine with practical consequences for citizenship, treaties, and property law ^[2][5].

His presidency drew more mixed reviews at home, where some found his communication style distant, yet his wartime advocacy for Ukraine and his push to reckon with Soviet era symbols won respect across the Baltic region. Taken together, the basic Egils Levits facts describe a jurist who spent a lifetime arguing that law, patiently applied, can restore and defend a nation ^[7][8].