German Legal Thought in Lithuanian Constitutionalism. The Impact of the Jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court on Lithuanian Constitutional Development

Abstract

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly re-established democratic states moved swiftly to consolidate their regained independence. Lithuania was the first of the Baltic States to declare its withdrawal from the Soviet Union. Upon the restoration of independence, the country required a new constitution, as the last one in force prior to the Soviet occupation, the 1938 Constitution of Lithuania, was neither fully democratic nor aligned with the expectations of a modern state. Its validity was restored for a few minutes to mark the continuation of the state that existed before the occupation, only to be suspended right away. The newly adopted 1992 Constitution introduced, for the first time in Lithuanian legal history, the establishment of a constitutional review body – the Constitutional Court. By opting for the European model of constitutional review, as did Latvia (and unlike Estonia, where constitutional review is entrusted to the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court), Lithuania established a new separate institution with the mission entrusted to it to ensure the supremacy of the Constitution. review body overseeing other branches of government was not entirely novel. As early as the interwar period, the Lithuanian constitutional theorist Mykolas Römeris had analysed European practice and argued in favour of the necessity of such an institution.