Parlamentinių procedūrų raida Lietuvos Respublikos Seime 1918-1940 m

Abstract

This final paper of a Master of Science deals with the insight into the course of procedures of Lithuanian parliament. The beginning was in 1918-1919 in the form of the Council of the State. The action of regulation were the fundamental laws and statutes of the Provisional Constitution of Lithuania. The Council of the State was formed differently. Due to historical circumstances it was formed not by the way of general election and couldn’t be considered as the Seimas. But at that time it was the only institution in power having the function of the parliament and legislature. Thus the starting point of the research into the parliament procedures could be justified. The paper deals only with the main parliamentary procedures: 1) The status of the member of the parliament (the rights, duties and the responsibilities) regulating the legal status, 2) procedures related to the control of the Government and 3) the legislation. The norms of the procedure are brought into action in 2 legal laws. The search was based on two of them: the Constitution and the Statute of the Seimas. The analysis was done applying the historical, comparative, classification and generalization methods and as an auxiliary method a descriptive method enabling to produce the selected data for the analysis because during the period from 1918 to 1940. According to the reflection of parliament procedures and political events of this period, how the State developed its democracy, three courses of parliamentary procedures could be distinguished. The first period – 1918-1920 the foundation of the parliamentary state. The second – 1920-1926 the establishment of parliamentary democracy in the Seimas. The third – 1926-1940 the recession of the parliamentary democracy. The parliamentary procedures during the first period show the invalidity of the regulation of actions of the legislative function, but at the same time show efforts to establish the parliamentary – democratic republic. The second period best stand for the regulating law rules established in the Constitution of 1922 and the Statute of Seimas 1924. The elements of democracy as well as the regulation of the parliament work in those documents show, that the Seimas as legislature had an exceptional position in the system of authorities in power. The third period starts after the upheaval of 1926, when the parliament lost its self-sufficiency. In April 1927 the Seimas was dissoluted and it was not convened for nine years. The function of legislature and other function of parliament undertook the representatives of the executive power and President of Republic especially. The recession of the parliamentarism in Lithuania at that period is represented in the statute of Seimas 1936 and the rules of constitution 1938. The Seimas was not a highly estimated institution until 1940. The research exposed the importance of the Statutes of the Seimas in contrast to the Constitutions with general and declarative statements. The results of the research when compared to the present Seimas action regulations (Constitution and Statute) allow us to draw a conclusion, that really valid parliamentary procedures of the period 1918-1940 were neglected. Thus the author dares to suggest perfecting some procedures of the Statute of Seimas or even to explain some provisions of the Constitution. Cicero was right: Historia est magistra vitae.