Doctoral thesis on legal problems of quality aspect in public procurement contracts

The legality and efficiency of the use of public funds is a particularly topical issue. Although, as we have seen in practice, saving public money is often the most important objective, it should not be the main one. The public budget should be used with the sole aim of pursuing the public interest in the most efficient and qualitative manner.

While innovative approaches to ensuring public procurement in line with sustainable, environmental, and other principles periodically emerge in the legal field, there has been no in-depth study and analysis of the quality aspect, which underpins both the definition and the evaluation of criteria, as well as the adequacy or otherwise of the performance of the contract in the public interest. Nor has the potential for sharing public resources, its practical and legal aspects, to ensure the efficiency of public administration been assessed.

In her dissertation thesis "Legal Problems of Quality Aspect in Public Procurement Contracts" Līga Avena, PhD student at RSU, has investigated whether the concept of quality is defined in the field of public procurement and construction, what the elements and dimensions of quality are that should be assessed when spending public funds, and how the best price/quality ratio should be determined when evaluating bids in a public procurement procedure.

The study analyses the quality aspects in a multidisciplinary way, revealing the relevance of quality to the purpose of public procurement, interpreting the binding legal provisions through different methods of legal interpretation and assessing them through the prism of economic theories.

The dissertation focuses on the construction sector in depth, as it encompasses both the supply of goods and services, thus making it possible to uncover all the dimensions of quality that are relevant in public procurement.

In her work, the author has developed a definition of quality and an algorithm for determining the best value for money when awarding public procurement contracts.

Līga Avena will defend her doctoral thesis "Legal Problems of Quality Aspect in Public Procurement Contracts" on 27 October 2023.

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RSU dissertation database