RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN LITHUANIA IN THE JUDICIAL FIELD SINCE 1 JANUARY, 2015

Development of mediation conception

The Government of the Republic of Lithuania on 4th February 2015 has approved the Conception on Development of Conciliatory Mediation System (later referred to as Conception).

 

The Conception is aimed at promoting the development of mediation institute in civil, criminal and administrative proceedings. The Conception was prepared taking into account the experience of foreign states, recommendations of the Council of Europe as well as rules and principles of international law and European Union law.

Although from the 1st January 2015 the judicial mediation is available in all the courts in civil cases, it is still not under development stage. In order to reduce the workload of courts, the mandatory mediation before the courts is proposed to apply in family cases (it is not recommended to apply mandatory mediation in all the family cases at this stage due to the amounts of family cases), small claims (less than 1500 EUR). Also judges could direct the parties towards mandatory mediation. In addition, mandatory mediation in civil cases could be applied in those cases where state-guaranteed legal aid is provided.

The Conception also establishes the possibility of implementing the mediation in consumer disputes, administrative disputes. The judicial and non judicial mediation could be applies in administrative disputes. These disputes could be solved by the member of Administrative Disputes Commission, who is on the list of mediators.

The mandatory mediation in criminal proceedings is also recommended, e.g. in cases of private actions. In other cases mediation in criminal proceedings could be applied under certain requirements: with the consent of aggrieved party, suspect, defendant, accused person, in clear circumstances of criminal act, the acceptation of blame of defendant. Although it is established that there should be a list of crimes, where mediation could not be applicable, e.g. in crimes to humanity and of war, terrorism and etc.   

The Conception establishes that mediation services, provided by the State implemented projects or paid by the State, could be provided only by mediators, who are on the list of mediators. All mediators should meet special requirements (university degree, 40 hours of trainings in mediation, passing the exam, etc.). This list is proposed to be administered by the State-guaranteed legal aid service, which will also be an institution, appointing the mediator in the case (special arrangements apply to judges-mediators, judicial mediation).

   

It should be mentioned that the mediation will be implemented in civil, administrative and criminal proceedings in stages, the first stage being the mediation in civil proceedings.

Under the Conception the list of mediators will be adopted (with specialisation) and this list will be administered by the State-guaranteed legal aid service, which will be reorganized in order to face with the task of  appointing the case to the state financed mediator (except the judges).

As the Conception states that the mediation will be developed in stages, the first stage being the development of mediation in civil proceedings, the working group was formed by the Ministry of Justice on 23rd April 2015 with the task to draft the draft legislation, which is required for the implementation of the Conception in the field of civil procedure. This working group should prepare the draft legislation until the 1st November 2015.

Reorganization of the judicial system

The Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania together with the Judicial Council and with the National Courts Administration has prepared draft laws concerning the reorganization of the district courts of general jurisdiction and regional administrative courts.

Currently, there are 49 district courts in the Republic of Lithuania, the territories of jurisdiction of which mostly correspond to the territories of the municipalities, and 5 regional administrative courts, the territories jurisdiction of which correspond to the territories of the regional courts of general jurisdiction.  There is an essential difference on the number of cases received by the specific court or judge and the current regulation is not sufficient to disseminate the workload of the judges more evenly.

Also there is a need for specialization of judges (there is only from 3 to 5 judges in more than a half of district courts), rationalization of the human and financial resources, optimization of the connections between the courts and other law enforcement institutions such as police and prosecutor offices, which will also enable faster litigation.

Earlier experience was also valuable. Firstly, from January 1, 2013 8 district courts were joined into 3 and this joining resulted in positive ways. Secondly, the aspiration was also given by the best practices of other European countries (Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and others). For instance, in Estonia the number of courts of general jurisdiction was decreased from 16 to 4 in 2006 (each consisting of several courthouses). After 2 years it was concluded that this consolidation of courts had a positive impact on the effectiveness of the administration of justice (e.g. the workload of the judges of the joined district courts became more even)

So, the aim of the draft legal acts is to create the legal and organizational preconditions for the increase of the effectiveness of the administration of justice. Therefore the following aims and goals of the drafts were determined:

  1. To increase the timeliness in court proceedings by making the workload of the judges and working conditions more even.
  2. To facilitate the access to justice, enabling to execute the procedures closer to the place of residence of the citizens.
  3. To use the human and material resources of the courts in more effective way by concentrating the administrative resources.
  4. To broaden the self-governance of the judiciary by establishing the new branch of judicial self-governance (the meeting of the court judges).
  5. To increase the possibilities for the specialization of judges by increasing the number of judges working in one court.
  6. To abolish the organization obstacles for litigation – to conform the territories of the courts’ jurisdiction to the territories of other law enforcement institutions’ jurisdiction.

According to the draft law, the 49 district courts of general jurisdiction will be consolidated into 12 district courts, and 4 regional administrative courts into one county regional administrative court Each of these court will consist of one central place of residence and several courthouses (instead of the current courts). The Vilnius regional administrative court will not be included into the reorganization procedures due to its specific juristiction set out in law.

The model for the territorial breakdown was drafted taking into account the geographical location of the relevant courts, their premises, possibilities of communication with institutions and persons, the current territories of the local police and regional prosecution offices. The case load, number of judges and their workload were also taken into account. It should be pointed out, that the territories of the consolidated courts are created from the territories of the currently active courts (they are not divided).

The consolidation of the district and regional administrative courts would create the preconditions for more even workload of the judges, specialization possibilities based on the specific categories for the cases, braches and sub-branches or institutes of law. It should be noted, that having the better conditions for the judicial specialization, the access to justice of citizens will not be burdened, e.g. the cases which are heard in written procedure could be allocated to all the court houses of the court, but the cases that are heard in oral procedure could be allocated according to rules mutatis mutandis applicable to the rules for territorial jurisdiction.

Moreover, the material, financial and human resources currently located in different courts would be concentrated in the consolidated courts. After the centralization of human resources, people working in the administration of courts, e.g. accountants, IT specialists, interpreters, would perform their functions ensuring the proper function of all the court houses that constitute one court.

The draft laws were approved by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania on 23rd April 2015 and now those draft laws will be submitted to the Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania (the Seimas) for consideration.

Electronic pre-trial investigation system

The amendments to the Code of criminal proceedings are presented to Seimas. After the changes in the Code of criminal proceedings, the integrated information system of criminal proceedings (IBPS) will start its functioning, where records, gathered by pre-trial investigation institutions will be accumulated. The IBPS will be integrated with the Lithuanian court information system (LITEKO) and all pre-trial investigation judges and court employees, who manage the pre-trial investigation data.    

Judge and court employee will be able to get acquainted with the materials of the case in court, prepared by the pre-trial investigation institutions, register their actions during the pre-trial investigation (appoint the court hearings, register the results of court hearings and etc.), create and load the procedural documents.    

Cash limitation information system (PLAIS)

From 1st August, 2015 the debtors' accounts of enforced recovery should take place in the centralized cash write-off, i.e. via Cash limitationinformation system (PLAIS). This system will help to  securemore rights of creditors.

This system should guarantee the implementation of the principle of proportionality, i.e. the principle that in case debtor has not enough funds, the creditors in the same line will receive amounts proportionately.

Registry of administrative offences

The Law on the registry of administrative offences will come into force from the 1st July, 2015. The objects of this registry – administrative offences, which are recorded according to the Code of Administrative Offences.

Laima Garnelienė

Judge of the Court of Appeal of Lithuania

CEPEJ member (representative of Lithuania)