1992 metų Lietuvos Respublikos Konstitucijos esmė ir pagrindiniai bruožai

ENIn this article, the author, first of all, points out that the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania of 25 October 1992 was adopted during the period that, in comparative constitutional law, is identified as the fourth stage of global constitutional development. This stage, which started in the 1980s, is characterised by the collapse of totalitarian regimes in Central and Eastern Europe. The political and social transformation was the result of the aspiration of the peoples to liberate themselves from the oppression and dictatorship of the empire of the Soviet Union. It was then that, in this part of Europe, new constitutions were born and meant the end of socialist constitutional systems in Europe. A similar process also took place in Lithuania. As a result, the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania was adopted, and this marked a new future of the constitutional development of an independent democratic state of Lithuania. The author also emphasises that this Constitution reflects the social contract—an obligation democratically assumed—by all the citizens of the Republic of Lithuania to the current and future generations to live under the fundamental rules as enshrined in the Constitution and to obey those rules so that the legitimacy of state power and decisions, as well as human rights and freedoms, would be ensured. This Constitution, as the highest-ranking act and social contract, is based on universal and unquestionable values, such as the sovereignty belonging to the Nation, democracy, the recognition of human rights and freedoms and respect for them, respect for law and the rule of law, the limitation of the scope of powers, the duty of state institutions to serve the people and their responsibility to society, civic consciousness, justice, and the striving for a harmonious civil society and a state under the rule of law. The author of the article analyses the core principles on the grounds of which this Constitution is based.It is emphasised that the core principles compose the supremacy of the Constitution in the legal system, the stability of the Constitution, the integrity of the Constitution, and the Constitution as a directly applicable act. In defining the form and structure of the Constitution, it is stated that it is to be classified as a composite codified constitution. In addition to the main text, the Constitution consists of the Preamble and the "Constituent Part of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania", which includes the Law "On the State of Lithuania" of 11 February 1991, the Constitutional Act "On the Non-Alignment to Post-Soviet Eastern Unions" of 8 June 1992, the Law of the Republic of Lithuania "On the Procedure for the Entry into Force of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania" of 25 October 1992, and the Constitutional Act "On Membership of the Republic of Lithuania in the European Union" of 13 July 2004. The Constitution proclaims that "The State of Lithuania shall be an independent democratic republic". This means that the principle of the republic, as a form of the governance of the state, is the basis of the functioning of the state as an organisation and, at the same time, a protected constitutional value that must be complied with without derogations in the political history of Lithuania and in the development of Lithuanian constitutionality.