S. Skvernelis: after the court’s verdict, the mandates of parliamentarians should be destroyed automatically

According to him, such a principle might apply when a member of the Seimas is convicted in a criminal case, and when the Constitutional Court points out that the parliamentarian violated the oath.

According to S. Skvernelis, in such cases the mandate might simply be taken away by the Supreme Election Commission.

“However, if there is a final decision of the Supreme Court and a person working in the Seimas is convicted of a crime, then probably there should not be any voting in the Seimas. The court’s decision and the point – the Supreme Election Commission must destroy the mandate of a member of the Seimas”, S. Skvernelis told Žinių radio on Friday.

“It is exactly the same with the decisions of the Constitutional Court,” he added.

This is what the politician said following Vytautas Gapšuis, a member of the Labor faction convicted in a political corruption case in November, retained his parliamentary mandate. There were not enough votes to remove him in a secret ballot.

S. Skvernelis also said that he would not support the proposal to make the votes on impeachment of Seimas members open.

Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said in an interview broadcast on Thursday on “Info TV” that such an amendment to the statute of the Seimas might be adopted by the parliament of this term.

According to S. Skvernelis, secret voting protects the voting members of the Seimas.

“Voting for a member of the Seimas, (…) maybe following that the member of the Seimas will be persecuted by his active fans, of which there are quite a lot, for expressing one or another position,” said the chairman of the “Vardan Lietuvos” Democratic Union.

“The essence of the secret ballot is that it should be objective,” he said.

In November, the Court of Appeal of Lithuania sentenced V. Gapšius to five and a half years in prison for corruption crimes, and he is currently serving time in Kaunas prison.

The politician was convicted for taking a bribe from Raimonds Kurlianskis, the former vice president of MG Baltic (now MG Group). As a bribe, discounts were given to the Labor Party for its advertising during the elections, and V. Gapšys promised to influence fellow party members to fulfill the businessman’s requests.