Mykolo Romerio veikla Valstybės Taryboje

Abstract

Although short, the three-year membership of M. Romeris in the State Council, a high constitutional institution of Lithuania established in 1928, is often referred to by the biographers as an important page of his life. In spite of such assessment, this page is far from complete. This article is based on the archival materials

and the relevant thoughts of M. Romeris himself and it seeks to compensate for this shortage in the literature about the life of M. Romeris. M. Romeris agreed to cease his favored activities as a judge in the Highest Tribunal and took up a position in the new State Council as established in 1928 because he hoped to contribute to the democratic values that he established in his scholastic work and private life. This article seeks to describe this goal by explaining the following activities of his: the drafting of the Statutes of the State Council, which were not approved by the Government due to the stubbornness of the Council and himself; the unsuccessful effort to realize the idea of an administrative court; the efforts to implement the constitutional freedom of conscience and establish a civil registry. This article concludes that by firmly seeking the ideas of democracy M. Romeris did not meet the expectations of the authoritarian Government. As the Government blocked his efforts, M. Romeris gave up the idea of getting any results from his activities in the Council and therefore he left the Council.