Rinkimų teisė XX a. pradžios Lietuvos konstitucijose

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Konstitucija; Rinkimų teisė; Tarpukario Lietuvos konstitucijos; 20 amžius; Constitution; Election law; The interwar Lithuanian constitution; XX century.

ENThe essential norms of the State of Lithuania’s Provisional Constitutions adopted on 2 November 1918 and 4 April 1919, as well as Lithuania’s Constitutions of 1922, 1928, and 1938, consolidated the provisions of election law of supreme institutions of state power. The Provisional Constitutions of 1918 and 1919 established the principles of election law of the Constituent Seimas (universal voting, equal suffrage, direct voting, and secret ballot), proclaimed the equality of sexes, and consolidated women’s suffrage. The Constitutions of 1922, 1928 and 1938 consolidated the provisions regulating the elections of the Seimas, the President of the Republic, and municipal institutions. They established expressis verbis four principles of elections of the Seimas: universal voting, equal suffrage, direct voting, and secret ballot; they established the election system applicable in the election of the Seimas and the precise term for which the Seimas is elected (the term of office of the Seimas), i.e., the periodicity in the elections of the Seimas was consolidated in a formal manner.The Constitutions of 1922, 1928, and 1938 also consolidated expressis verbis the qualifications (citizenship and age) for elections of the Seimas. An analysis of the legal regulation established in the Constitutions of 1922, 1928, and 1938 leads to the conclusion that the legal regulation consolidated in the Constitution of 1922 established sufficiently effective constitutional guarantees for democratic elections of the Seimas, whilst each subsequent constitution continued consolidating an increasing number of legal provisions that created the preconditions for the narrowing of the circle of persons enjoying both active and passive electoral right, but did not establish any sufficient constitutional guarantees ensuring the periodicity in elections of the Seimas and the execution of democratic elections of the Seimas. The Constitutions of 1922, 1928 and 1938 established indirect elections of the President of the Republic. [From the publication]