In his article, Henrikas Mickevicius argues that the recent prolonged process of filling in the vacant position of the Prosecutor-General has been neither professional, nor transparent and democratic and proposes to review the criteria for this position as well as the procedure of appointment.
The Deputy Prosecutor-General has counted that 139 days were necessary to appoint the new Prosecutor-General. To compare – after the Labor Secretary of the United Kingdom has resigned on November 2, 2005, his successor was appointed the same day. The speedy replacement of the high state official ensured uninterrupted work of the Department and subordinate institutions. In Lithuania, for months prosecutors have been working in waiting regime, concomitant of demoralizing statements and speculations. For instance, the State President has repeatedly stated that suitable candidates refuse to take the position, and the media discussed about the "downturn in Lithuanian prosecution system".
One of the reasons for such a lengthy and detrimental process has been the fact that the current Law on Public Prosecution unjustifiably narrows down the possible pool of candidates, restricting it to prosecutors, judges and legal academics. In addition, the Law does not provide for detailed procedural rules on how a candidate is identified, selected and appointed. H. Mickevicius proposes specific steps to improve the current criteria for the office and to specify procedural rules for the selection and appointment.
Full text of the article find here or on the internet portal Omni.
© 2012 Human Rights Monitoring Institute