Konstitucinio Teismo nutarimų įgyvendinimas įstatymų leidyboje

Abstract

There are some problems in the implementation of rulings of the Constitutional Court. The legislator should make more efforts for implementing the concept of the provisions of the Constitution provided in the reasoning parts of rulings of the Constitutional Court. The Statute of the Seimas should be supplemented with provisions obligating structural sub-units of the Seimas to carry out permanent and systemic analysis of reasoning parts of rulings of the Constitutional Court. It would allow timely to prepare proposals how to amend still unchallenged legal regulation which, however, from the constitutional standpoint is doubtful. One should consider whether the norm of Item 4 of Paragraph 1 of Article 64 of the Law on the Constitutional Court, which allows one to challenge the compliance of a legal act with the Constitution on the grounds of the procedure for adoption regardless of any terms expired after the adoption of a law or other legal act, should be amended. It is to be presumed that the principles of legal certainty and legal security entrenched in the Constitution, as well as other constitutional provisions, imply a certain reasonable period of time within which the subjects provided for in the Constitution may apply to the Constitutional Court with a petition requesting to investigate whether a law or other legal act is not in conflict with the Constitution according to the procedure of their adoption. This period of time should not be a long one, for example, half a year or a year since the official publishing of the law; this term should be a prescriptive one–after it has finished, it would not be allowed to challenge the compliance of a law or other legal act with the Constitution according to the procedure of their adoption. In order to speed up the consideration of cases at the Constitutional Court, one would have to change the procedure of consideration of cases in this Court in essence. It is proposed that the Law on the Constitutional Court should entrench a provision, whereby not all cases are considered in the full composition of the Court: 1) colleges of three justices would consider the cases for settlement of which the existing official constitutional doctrine is sufficient (there is no need to form a new constitutional doctrine); 2) colleges of five justices would consider the cases for settlement of which the existing official constitutional doctrine must only be slightly corrected (developed); 3) the Court in full composition would consider only the cases for settlement of which no official constitutional doctrine has been formed or the existing constitutional doctrine must be corrected in essence (it is necessary to reinterpret the official concept of constitutional provisions and to form a new constitutional doctrine). In addition, one should amend the provision of the Law on the Constitutional Court which allows the Court to prolong in an unlimited manner the four-month term, provided for in the law, within which the consideration of the case must be finished and a ruling must be adopted. This term could be prolonged only in exceptional cases, when the established time period is not sufficient due to objective reasons in order to carry out all procedural actions necessary to commence the consideration of the case.