Impeachment Proceedings in Lithuania: Model, Problems of Implementation, and Possibilities of Improvement

Lithuania has the highest number of impeachments in Europe. The Lithuanian Constitutional Court has adopted seven conclusions in impeachment cases and has been also involved in other impeachment proceedings. This extensive case law has enabled this court to develop a comprehensive constitutional doctrine on different impeachment issues. Nevertheless, the recent conclusions of the Constitutional Court in impeachment cases and the problems of their implementation raise questions regarding the optimality of the legal regulation of impeachment proceedings. This research has been aimed to discuss the need, preconditions, and possibilities for modifying the constitutionally consolidated and other legal regulation of impeachment proceedings in Lithuania. To achieve this aim, the following tasks are undertaken and dealt with: 1) to discuss the legal regulation of the impeachment process in Lithuania and the doctrine of the Constitutional Court on this issue; 2) to analyse the practice and problems of implementing the mechanism of impeachment in Lithuania; 3) to make proposals for improving the legal regulation of impeachment in Lithuania. These issues are, inter alia, examined in the context of legal regulation of impeachment procedure in other European states, to compare impeachment procedure in Lithuania and other states of this region in the area under discussion.