Asmenų lygybės principas, kaip teisės aktų konstitucingumo matas, Lietuvos Respublikos Konstitucinio Teismo praktikoje

Abstract

The author analyses how the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania in its practice handles the constitutional principle of equality of persons as a criterion to test the constitutionality of legal acts. In its decisions the Constitutional Court exposes that this principle is characterised by formal equality even though this fact does not exclude a possibility to establish different legal regulation to certain categories of persons that enjoy different status. Also the Constitutional Court stressed that the principle of equality applies to juridical and physical persons alike, that this principle might be correctly understood as both a general constitutional principle and natural law. This principle is tightly interwoven with the rest of the body of constitutional principles and clauses. Non-discrimination, absence of privileges, equality of all persons before the law, the court, and other State institutions and officials are the elements, which stand instrumental in the process of aforementioned exposition. The judicial review of the application of the principle of equality of persons in the legal acts is one of the key elements ensuring the constitutionality of ordinary law.