On Tuesday, 122 members of the Seimas voted in favor of re-considering the law returned by the president, and one was against it. Next, the project will be considered by the Seimas Committee on State Management and Municipalities, then it will return to the Seimas hall for a final vote.
Chief legal adviser Andrius Kabišaitis, who presented the presidential veto, said that after narrowing the powers of VTEK and handing local commissions to investigate potential violations by local government politicians, investigations may be delayed and biased decisions may be made.
“Such a change would mean that the investigation of the behavior of members of municipal councils and mayors would be carried out exclusively by ethics commissions established by the decision of municipal councils. (…) By narrowing the powers of VTEK and granting them only to the competence of the ethics commissions of municipal councils, the law would not set the terms of such an investigation, and this could create conditions for these investigations to continue indefinitely, without making any decision that could later be appealed to VTEK”, he said A. Kabišaitis.
Vilius Semeška, a conservative who advocated the president’s veto, called the president’s decision timely and important for the smooth development of democracy.
“In the adoption of the amendments to the good intentions, there was a big enough error, I hope it was unintentionally introduced. It is very important to maintain the principle of transparency and honesty, we know very well how self-government ethics commissions are formed and how the majority can investigate the person of their majority, whether he violated the law or not,” said V. Semeška.
In June, the President vetoed the amendments to the Law on the Supreme Official Ethics Commission, which was adopted by the Seimas, arguing that if violations by local government politicians are left to be investigated exclusively by local ethics commissions, there is a risk that an objective investigation will be impossible due to bias.
Having returned the amendments to the Seimas, the President proposes to determine that the investigation of complaints regarding the compliance of the actions of members of municipal councils and mayors with the provisions of the Law on Harmonization of Public and Private Interests should remain the competence of VTEK.
Amendments to the VTEK Law adopted by the Seimas and vetoed by the President provide that this commission investigates reports, complaints and requests of individuals regarding the conformity of the actions of declaring persons with the provisions of the Law on Harmonization of Public and Private Interests, with the exception of members of the Seimas, members of municipal councils and mayors.
Until now, the law stipulates that VTEK does not conduct investigations only on parliamentarians, with the amendments adopted by the Seimas in June, this clause was added to include members of municipal councils and mayors.
VTEK takes the position that these amendments reconciled the Law of the Supreme Official Ethics Commission with the Law on Local Self-Government and the Code of Conduct for State Politicians.
According to the commission, until now, a complaint could be submitted to the municipal ethics commissions and VTEK regarding the same incident.
“This amendment aims at a systemic approach – that first of all municipal ethics commissions investigate the behavior of council members, as provided for in the Law on Local Self-Government, and the role of VTEK would be to evaluate the decisions of these commissions, if they were appealed to VTEK,” the commission previously stated in a comment submitted to BNS.
VTEK also noted that after the adoption of the amendments, the commission remains as a mandatory preliminary institution for handling disputes out of court, which examines complaints about decisions made by municipal ethics commissions.
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