Pre-trial detention in Lithuania - transition in legal culture and pre-trial detention trends
ENThe chapter explores the gradual transition from the highly punitive and extremely pro-incarcerating Soviet legal penal culture to the legal culture based on liberal and humanistic Western values in Lithuania. It shows that the progress is gradual but steady under the impact of both objective and professional–cultural factors. Both sets of factors are considered in detail in the chapter. The objective factors that shape the trend are changes in legislation (i.e. introduction of new coercive measures), decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), developments in international cooperation, etc. Professional–cultural factors are the abandonment of wrongful practices, increase in quality standards for the requests and decisions, advancing competence of the criminal justice authorities and other changes. One of the major findings in the chapter points out that the intense dynamics of the pre-trial detention trend under a relatively stable national legal framework, along with remarkably different rates of pre-trial detention in different countries with relatively similar legal frameworks, suggest the key role of the professional–cultural factors for the trends in practices of the pre-trial detention use.
