Seimas – Tautos atstovybė (konstituciniai pagrindai)

Abstract

Under the Constitution, only Members of the Seimas are representatives of the Nation and only the Seimas is the representation of the Nation. One of the most important features ac- cording to which a state institution is to be ascribed to the representation of the Nation is that it is a collegiate (acting as a collegiate body) state institution, which is comprised from representatives of the Nation and which adopts decisions only after debates, only by majority of votes and by taking account of various opinions.
The concept of the Seimas as the representation of the Nation is based upon these provisions: (1) the Seimas – the representation of the Nation – is established by the Nation itself. The Nation does so by adopting the Constitution and therein establishing the Seimas – the representation of the Nation – one of the institutions implementing state power; (2) the Nation as the subject to whom belongs sovereignty and who executes supreme sovereign power empowers the Seimas – the representation of the Nation – to execute (implement), within the limits established in the Constitution, the legislative power and to perform other functions provided for in the Constitution and those arising from it; (3) the Seimas – the representation of the Nation – while executing the powers ascribed to it by the Constitution, may not overstep the limits, which the Nation has been established to in the Constitution, i.e. in its activities the Seimas is bound by the Constitution as well as the laws that the Seimas itself has adopted; (4) the Nation, while seeking to ensure that all the institutions, including the Seimas – the representation of the Nation – which implement state power, follow and not violate the Constitution, in the Constitution provides for (establishes) an institution of constitutional control, i.e. the Constitutional Court, which it entrusts with the supervision of inter alia whether the Seimas – the representation of the Nation – while implementing its powers, acts within the limits established to it in the Constitution. In the Constitution the Nation grants the powers to the Constitutional Court inter alia to decide whether the laws and other legal acts adopted by the Seimas are in conflict with legal acts of greater power and, first of all, with the Constitution, and if such conflict is stated, to remove them from the legal system of Lithuania; (5) the Seimas – the representation of the Nation – is formed by means of democratic, free and fair elections; the Member of the Seimas is a representative of the entire Nation, regardless according to what electoral system he has been elected. The Member of the Seimas is not a representative at the Seimas of any electorate of corresponding electoral area that elected him, nor any political party or political organisation that nominated him, nor of any other subject: he is a representative of the entire Nation. The free mandate of the Member of the Seimas entrenched in the Constitution means that in his activity the Member of the Seimas follows only the Constitution, the interests of the state and his own conscience. The member of the Seimas cannot be recalled by the electorate.