80 members of the Seimas voted for them, three were against, and 41 abstained. The draft will be considered by Seimas committees.
“The project aims to prevent and establish proportional criminal liability for intentional and extremely dangerous actions, when individuals purposefully direct their efforts against our state and its inhabitants,” said Andrius Kabišaitis, the president’s chief adviser on legal issues, presenting the amendments to the Criminal Code.
According to him, criminal responsibility for anti-state activities does not change for 20 years, so some punishments do not correspond to the realities of life.
“The need for changes to the Code was determined, first of all, by changes in the current realities, the emergence of new and intensification of previous geopolitical threats. The experience of the war in Ukraine has been evaluated,” the advisor asserted.
He reminded that the Lithuanian intelligence services, while providing an assessment of threats to national security in 2023, drew attention to changes in the threat structure.
“The assessment indicates an obvious danger due to possible crimes against the state, the desire of unfriendly states to collect a wide range of information and not only that which is a state secret, as well as other circumstances related to state security. “Such hostile states as Russia and Belarus seek to influence democratic processes in Lithuania, using not only citizens or diplomats living here, but also Lithuanian citizens,” said A. Kabišaitis.
By amending the Criminal Code, the president proposes to provide life imprisonment for organizing or participating in a coup d’état. Currently, the maximum penalty for this crime is 20 years in prison.
Collaborating with the occupation authorities should not be punished by up to five years, as is the case now, but by up to 15 years of imprisonment, and for participation in the activities of anti-constitutional groups and organizations – from five to 15 years in prison. Now it is punishable by imprisonment from three to ten years.
If a person participates in an armed organization with the aim of changing the constitutional order of Lithuania, violating its territorial integrity, the head of state proposes to provide for a prison sentence of eight years to life for such persons, and for the organizers of such groups – from 12 years to life.
According to the draft, criminal liability would be applied for the kidnapping, purchase or other collection of official secrets and other information that can be used to encroach on fundamental constitutional values with the aim of transferring them to foreign intelligence agencies.
Now, imprisonment for up to 15 years is threatened only for stealing a state secret with the intention of transferring it to a foreign state.
The leader of the opposition Democratic Union “Vardan Lietuvos” Saulius Skvernelis questioned whether these proposals would unbalance the punishment system. He was particularly surprised by the proposal to make collaboration with the occupation authorities a serious crime.
“Let’s remember that period of 50 years (Soviet occupation – BNS), here it was also collaboration in various forms. Even membership in the Communist Party, for example, can be treated as such. Such sanctions, are they really adequate, proportionate, or do they not destroy the whole system?” said the politician.
In its conclusion, the Law Department of the Seimas also questioned whether the proposed increase in the punishment for collaboration in the project is proportionate to the seriousness of this criminal act.
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