Individual Constitutional Complaint in Lithuania: Conception and the Legal Issues

This article presents the concept of individual constitutional complaint and its fundamental conditions as well as the basic provisions for its development in Lithuania. The article presents currently applicable fundamental constitutional provisions which define the subjects who may refer to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania regarding compliance of the legal act with the Constitution, and the grounds for submission of such complaint. The doctrine of the individual constitutional complaint is defined by the author on the basis of case law of Lithuanian Constitutional Court. The author presents several examples concerning with this topic; the author discuses fundamental provisions related to the issue of individual constitutional complaint which has been approved as a new conception by the Seimas (the Parliament). The following provisions are established by the Constitution and the case law of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania: the person whose constitutional rights or freedoms are violated shall have the right to apply to the court, the right to apply to the court is an absolute one, the Constitutional Court - a judicial institution, the Constitution is a directly applicable act, everyone may defend his or her rights by invoking the Constitution. These provisions are provided in the conclusions of the article by defining their constitutional nature. This situation allows debate about the importance of the individual constitutional complaint. And the debates raise the issue of the fundamental premises of this complaint.