In 1922, on 5 April, Latvia’s Constitutional Assembly rejected Part II of the Satversme in its third reading – the “Basic Rules on Citizens’ Rights and Duties.” The vote was paradoxical: 62 deputies voted in favor, only 6 against, but 62 abstained, and disagreements between civic parties and Social Democrats prevented the human-rights chapter from becoming part of the constitution. As a result, the 1922 Satversme long remained a concise constitution of state structure without a full catalogue of fundamental rights.

The first part of the Satversme had been adopted on 15 February 1922, but the vote on 5 April made clear that the constitution would enter history in an unfinished form. A fundamental-rights chapter was added to the Satversme only in 1998, when the constitution was supplemented with Chapter VIII, “Fundamental Human Rights.”