Law-governed state in the Lithuanian Constitutional Doctrine (1918-1940)

Abstract

How must the state life be organized to ensure right protection of all the people and realization of the rights? Striving this aim, it is orienting on a law-governed State model which is formulated as the long-term and strategic ideal of the State’s development in the preamble of 1992 Constitution of Republic of Lithuania. While analysing the current constitutional regulation and searching for the methods to improve and resources to strengthen the constitutional system, researchers of the constitutional law look for the background information in the most recent legal experience, EU constitutional tradition and even more – in the experience of constitutionalism in the entire world and Lithuania. The reason is simple – it is Western tradition where the concepts of the constitutionalism, democracy and rule of law gained their true meaning. The idea and practise of law-governed state is the product of the capitalistic epoch in essence. It developed as an organized effort of a citizen to restrict the self-will of the State authority with respect to his rights in the Western Europe and America. This trend evolved from the legal state to the law-governed state (rule of law) and, finally, to the social state or the welfare state. A conscious realization of law-governed State model is based on the knowledge what kinds of measures of human rights protection it disposes and what the possibilities of those measures to reach this aim were in Lithuania. This article is an attempt to revise a tradition of the European constitutionalism and assess its impact on the Constitutions of the first Republic of Lithuania (1918-1940), to discuss application of the European constitutional heritage while developing the constitutional provisions in Lithuania. [...]