Juris is originally from Latvia, but joined the office from London where he worked for the leading British lesbian, gay and bisexual rights organisation Stonewall. Initially Juris worked for Stonewall’s Citizenship 21 project which addressed the issues of multiple-discrimination and provided capacity building support for community organisations. Juris also was involved in establishing Stonewall’s information centre and creating and maintaining its website. Juris was also involved in Stonewall’s policy and research work.

In 1990 Juris became a co-founder of the Latvian Association for Sexual Equality and until 1997 was its board member. In 1995, Juris was a director for the EU funded Lesbian and Gay Anti-Discrimination Project in Latvia. Since 1996, Juris was actively involved in establishing the Homosexuality Information Centre in Latvia and for many years was its legal advisor. In 1998 Juris was employed by the Latvian National Human Rights Office to carry out a research on the legal satiation for lesbians, gay men and bisexuals in Latvia and other jurisdictions. As part of this research work, Juris prepared a series of legislative amendments to reduce sexual orientation discrimination in Latvia. One of the proposals, the registered partnership bill, was submitted to the parliament in 1999 by the Latvian National Human Rights Office. Since 1992 Juris was actively involved in and represented Latvian organisations at ILGA conferences and other forums.

Iin 1994 Juris graduated from the University of Latvia. In 1997, he completed his LL.M course in European Legal Studies at the University of Exeter, United Kingdom.

Juris is Latvian and started working for ILGA-Europe on 14 October 2004.