llredakcija@gmail.com 14 November, 2024 0

Aurimas Drižius

The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has ruled that the 2024 Seimas elections are rigged. However, it stated that only the President or the Seimas can challenge the results of the elections, while ordinary citizens are not allowed to do so, as the law does not give them this right.

„So what did the court say? – said signatory Zigmas Vaišvila, „The court has told us in two rulings that observers and candidates can challenge the decisions of all election commissions, but only until the final results of the elections are adopted. And election observers have no right to question the final results of the election of the Seimas, just like the election of the President. They are supposedly only entitled to call the election of municipal councillors, and they are entitled to call the election of mayors. Why should we not? The Court considers that only the President of the Republic and the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania have this right. They can, under Article 191 of the electoral codes, and the Constitution gives them that right, apply to the Constitutional Court within three days for a finding as to whether there are serious irregularities in the elections to the Seimas and the presidency, and then the Seimas should take a decision on whether to annul the results in one or all of the constituencies”.

According to the signatory Zigmas Vaišvila, „we have found, and the court has recorded in its rulings, serious violations – in 22 districts, in early voting, voting houses and special places, voting was carried out with unidentified, unmarked and unidentified ballots. In addition, some 30% of the ballot papers were not handed over to the polling stations by the 70 constituencies. This is despite the fact that the law stipulates that this must be done at least 12 hours before the start of the elections. Neither these undelivered ballot papers nor the unused ballot papers have been inventoried and are not recorded anywhere in the accounts. Huge quantities of ballot papers were unaccounted for, not to mention other irregularities.

However, the court in this situation has told us that we have no right to do anything. We do not have the right to challenge the results of these elections. However, we have made another request to the court. We have asked the court, if it thinks that we do not have such a right, and we are appealing against Article 189(4) of the Electoral Code, which only gives the right to call that part of the results to the observers and the candidates, but does not give the right to call the elections of the Parliament and the President, to declare that it is in conflict with Article 29 of the Constitution, which says that all persons are equal before the law, and with Article 30, which says that everyone has the right of recourse to a court of law for the violation of his rights.

However, the court said that the issue is clear to them, that there are more equal persons, the President and the Seimas of Lithuania, who have this right, but we do not. I would say this – the court did not dare to appeal to the Constitutional Court, and we will wait for the opinion of the Third Chamber on the World Lithuanian Constituency. However, in any case, I will draw the attention of the honourable judges to a number of considerations. Neither the President of the Republic, nor the Seimas, nor the Government, nor any ministry has even the rights of a legal person under Lithuanian law. Do you understand what that is? There are defendants in the cases, there are the respective chancelleries, the President, the Seimas, the Government, the ministries. It is in such a situation to talk about the rights of persons who do not have any such legal personality rights at all, well, so let them talk. I am not against them having such rights.

The Constitution has given them. However, I am most shocked by the court’s opinion that, you see, here we are, the observers, well, and the candidate Einar Wilde, we are making these complaints, we want to defend the public interest, and we are not given that right. Wait a minute, honourable judges. So we have been registered by the CEC as candidates, and we have been registered as observers for reasons other than personal motives. Judges, read the Electoral Code, we are not going to observe the elections for personal reasons and we are observers. And we want to, we are defending the public interest. Well, it’s more defending the public interest, as the CEC’s only body empowered to conduct elections, the power to monitor elections. So what are we doing there in the brown flour? Is this our personal issue? No, ours. Well, the candidate is still debatable, not a personal issue. But observers, well, you have completely written yourselves off here. Apparently you will have to pat the President of the Court for gross misconduct. It is best, well, the most correct thing to do is to go to the Constitutional Court to check the constitutionality of the law. This is the situation now, and since I have emphasised the observers, perhaps you will be the first to comment on this situation, Gediminas, with regard to the court’s finding that there is a level playing field in a more equal Lithuania.

Gediminas Ustinavičius, Head of the Observers’ Guild : I have sent these two court rulings to the electronic assistant and asked him to answer me the question whether these are these rulings or whether these are formal apologies. It means that the court is looking for ways not to deal with the merits of the case, or not to deal with the merits of the complaint, but simply looking for ways not to do the job and whether that is in accordance with the criteria of reasonableness and fairness.

So I got a twofold answer, and the answer is that it depends on the perspective of the assessment. From a legal and very formal point of view, the refusal to uphold the complaint is not a formal apology, because it complies with the letter of the law and the rules of competence established in case law. Clearly, I would not agree with the case law on this point, or whether it is already well established, because the Electoral Code, under which we are now making these complaints, was only adopted in 2022, and these presidential, European and now parliamentary elections were the first attempt to check how this law works, and the quality of this piece of work produced by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Regulatory Affairs. The other point of view is that, from the point of view of justice and fairness, one could question whether this legislative procedure actually guarantees the right of citizens to challenge the decisions of the CEC on the results of elections. As we can see, we do not have such a right, the courts refuse to even accept complaints for examination, and I think that this behaviour of the courts encourages the members of the CEC to be above the law, or to flaunt the law, as one of the members of the High Electoral Commission, Mr Vaišnys, has said, and they know that they are not being punished, that they will not be subjected to scrutiny by a court of law, and that they are free to do as they like, to answer as late as they please, and that they will have no successes. Well, then I wondered who it was that had drafted this law and who had been involved in its enactment and implementation.

Well, I will show you some of the heroes in a moment. This is the willingness of the Parliamentary Committee on Judicial Management. Irena Hasi, Agnė Širinskinė, Aušrinė Armonaitė, Gabrielius Landsbergis, Česla Paulševskis, Viljus Sabatauskas, Viljus Sameška, Algirdas STomšaitis. The first version of the law was also vetoed by the President, who is now also the President, Gitanas Nausėda. This means that his advisers also saw some problems with this law, but as we can see now from the legal practice that we have seen first-hand, they did not see any real problems. They did not see that observers and candidates are lawless, that they cannot assert their rights, that the PEC can do as it pleases and will not be controlled. And that, and what else we see, is that the courts are afraid to apply the Constitution directly, even though the Constitution is the supreme law, and even if the Constitutional Law is not in line with the Constitution, it is at least necessary to check this matter. So, it is the courts that are cautious and the law that is not good. What will be the decision on the 1971 District of the World Lithuanians? Well, I think it should not be different from these two decisions, but maybe it will be different.

Einaras Vilde : 12 years ago, there was no Lithuanian World District.All the votes went to the New Town District. And in the last few years, we had a Mr Žygimantas Pavilionis in the Newcastle constituency. It was practically the conservatives who were in charge of this process for a very long time and with sin. They have taken this tradition further, occupying practically the entire management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and so on. Returning to the current elections, the same vices have emerged again in these elections as they did 12 years ago. The very strange actions have been with precisely the main problem that I see, which is precisely early voting and postal voting, which are the most unsavoury things that are happening today, and the joint study that we have done proves it. I am not even talking about the simplest thing, let us put it this way – it is still unknown to me and unanswered to me, as a candidate, exactly what the composition of the World Lithuanian Constituency is. What are constituencies? The chairman, the units and so on. In the two months or so when I first approached her about this, formally only now a couple of weeks ago, when I approached Mrs Petronien directly, I was told that we would answer your questions.

I had asked about 12 questions, specifically organisational questions, which would give a very clear shift and proof of the competence and the rights of one or other of the persons who took part in the elections. The same question was related, similarly related, to who appointed the Chairperson of the constituency for the Kingdom of the United Kingdom in particular, also an unanswered question. In principle, as far as I have come across, both in the examples of foreign observation and in the earlier even versions, when there were still other organisers, the Mohicans, who organised the elections in 2012 as well, the observers were not bothered to observe, in principle. At that time, there may not have been the equipment, the smart phones that allowed photography and filming, but at least it was possible to record the processes all the time. For some reason, nowadays, it has been decided not to allow the recording of a possible crime at all, even though, in fact, it is usually the only official document that actually proves that one or other misdemeanour or unlawful act has been committed. This also shows that our democracy has a complete fiasco in this area and that Lithuania has no moral right to teach other countries about democracy and how to organise elections.

When I tried to describe how we could have a visual representation of what modern elections in Lithuania look like, that is what I came up with, and thank you very much to the honourable Member for putting that image in our joint presentation of this conference. It is a daddy with his eyes open and with three plates. That means the third party, which is usually a stronger party, somebody from abroad. I fully believe at the moment that the influential party, we can put America in the position of influencing which way the elections should go.

Zigmas Vaišvila : There was no accession in Moldova either, just a vote on some strange things, a law on relations between Moldova and the European Union, a declaration of some kind. But the point is, they did not even get 50%, and the Constitutional Court declared that everything was OK. It is true that, of the six judges of the Constitutional Court, two did not vote in the ballot and gave their strong opinion and reasoning that, in order to change the Constitution, two thirds of the electorate are needed. On that occasion, I also reminded them of the process of Lithuania’s accession to the European Union under siege. I will deal with that, and in the meantime I will publish this article, but the experts are already on info.lt and laisvas.info. Thanks to them. However, coming back to these matters, what Einar Wilde said is very important.

Because the VRK, feeling unpunished, as Gediminas did, consulted the conclusions of the so-called artificial intelligence. And they, you see, are not answering our questions, and Einar, and we are watching. However, when we appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, their questions of competence, as regards the ballot paper elections, are not working – the CEC is not accepting either. They say it is not related to the ballot papers. This is an example of the fear of judges. Because how can four women, excuse me, in the Moldovan Constitutional Court, when you need a majority and even a qualified majority, say that that is it, the constitution has been changed, when you have not even got a simple majority. You can imagine to what extent so-called Western democracy has become distorted. I will say a simple thing at this point. Do not accept the courts before the final results are heard, go to the regional court. And the courts will not accept our appeal against the final results. For fear of going to the Constitutional Court. Already two chambers of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania.

The third panel has as its rapporteur Gintaras Križevičius, a long-standing and former president of the highest court, the Supreme Court of Lithuania, and the President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, who, during the referendum, was also a man who, on the one hand, when this court applied the Constitution directly and allowed us to organise the referendum initiative, he was in a state of perspiration, but then he resolutely defended our right, and even thanks to him we got an additional three months, thanks to this judge, to sign the petition for election. It is just that we, the grassroots, did not appreciate the opportunity that was duly given to us, and we were too lazy to collect hundreds of thousands of signatures. This is the situation.

This is what I now want to say to those who think that we will achieve nothing with the courts. Here I show you the ruling of the Regional Administrative Court, which was issued by Judge Rimantas Gidraitis of the Kaunas Chamber. I appealed to the VRK, as an observer of the presidential elections and as a signatory, to produce the documents of the first round of the presidential elections, the acts of handing over the instruments, the protocols of counting the votes.

And the VRK said, no, you won’t get it. However, I applied to the court, and here Judge Rimantas Gidraitis applied interim measures, the case is still pending, suspending the VRK’s decision to annul the first round of the election of the President of the Republic, the acts of transfer of the ballot papers, and the protocols of the counting of the ballots. Well, maybe another one needs to be looked at carefully.

Yes, that dispute will be a nightmare, the VRK’s arbitrary power has been suspended by the court, but the question is what to do next. And Gediminas, partly with the help of so-called artificial intelligence, has already enlightened us that the VRC is encouraged by such court decisions, rulings, to abuse its power, to abuse its office, to fail to act, to falsify documents, and we have seen a lot of falsified handover acts and in such a situation, what should be done? We need to go to the Law Enforcement Agency. Our experience, the experience of those who have observed, of going to the Prosecutor General’s Office in relation to the presidential elections, to the European Parliament elections, what a sad experience.

The matter is referred to the Third Police Commissariat of Vilnius City, which supervises the territory of the Halė Turga, and there is no one there, not even a forged document to speak out on it. And the district prosecutor’s office, or even the general prosecutor’s office, says it’s OK here. When even the members of the electoral commissions admit that they falsify backdated written documents by confession.

So what to do? Today, we have prepared and we are already submitting, probably already submitted, there is our statement, we are directly addressing not the public prosecutor’s office, but the FNT, which is the competent authority, for non-compliance with the strict accountability of the documents in the Electoral Code. The PEC allows the retroactive entry of documents, which is illegal.