The Impeachment of Lithuanian President Rolandas Paksas

Issues Backgrounder #5, April 7, 2004
http://jbanc.org/issues.html
By Simonas Girdzijauskas

Washington, DC (JBANC) --- In a dramatic decision reached at 9:45 (EST) on April 6, 2004, the Parliament of Lithuania (Seimas) voted in favor on all three counts of impeachment against President Rolandas Paksas, thereby removing him from office. The three votes were 86-17, 86-18, and 89-14 in favor, finding the President in severe violation of the Constitution and his presidential oath. A super majority of 85 votes on any of the charges were needed to remove Mr. Paksas from office.

Accusations against the President were:

A) Honoring Russian citizen Mr. Yuri Borisov with Lithuanian citizenship in violation of the rules and procedure and as payback for his financial and other support during the 2002-2003 presidential election campaign.
B) Inability to protect secret information by allowing Mr. Borisov to understand that his phone has been wiretapped and that he was under surveillance by the Internal Security Department.
C) In violation of his presidential duties, Mr. Paksas’ illegally pressured private individuals to sell their shares of “Zemaitijos Keliai”, a road building company with a bright market outlook, to persons close to Paksas’ inner circle and for a significantly lower price than one determined by the market.

The impeachment capped more than five months of investigative and procedural processes. These began when Mr. Mecys Laurinkus, chief of the Internal Security Department (ISD), on October 30, 2003, provided to a group of prominent parliamentarians an analytical summary of investigative materials, connecting Mr. Paksas and his closest advisers to criminal and intelligence elements in Russia. Mr. Borisov was named as one of the key figures, and was feared to have to Russian mafia connections.

Surveillance tapes revealed Mr. Borisov threatening to make President Paksas into a “political corpse” if he did not live up to “their agreement”. Mr. Borisov publicly confessed to the existence of an agreement between him and the President. Mr. Paksas himself denied the existence of such a document, but failed to distance himself from his main supporter and continued to fulfill his obligations. Granting Mr. Borisov Lithuanian citizenship was one of the agreed points between the two. Furthermore, the President in defiance of the law, still regularly met with Mr. Borisov to “play tennis”, although the former was strictly forbidden to communicate with Mr. Paksas pending his criminal case about threatening the President.

This dangerous relationship reached its culmination when President Paksas announced that he would hire Mr. Borisov as his social advisor only a few days before the Constitutional Court was set to start debates on the constitutional merits of the impeachment. The post of social advisor was yet another point in an agreement between Mr. Paksas and Mr. Borisov. Due to the political storm that immediately followed, the announcement was recalled only three hours later; however, the damage had already been done. The move effectively eliminated Mr. Paksas’ chance to survive the impeachment as everybody, including his closest friends, realized how unstable and vulnerable the president had become.

Another character from Paksas’ circle worth mentioning is Mr. Remigijus Acas, the President’s former National Security Advisor, who was previously convicted of attempting to bring contraband tractors from Belarus to Lithuania and had a wide network of friends of questionable repute. Mr. Acas failed to disclose his criminal record before obtaining the position of defending the vital national interests of Lithuania. Paksas denied prior knowledge of Mr. Acas’ conviction and released him from the post soon after the scandal erupted.

During the proceedings, the privately hired presidential defense team did not argue or challenge dozens of phone recordings of what were presumed to be the President’s voice nor the facts that these events had taken place after he entered office. Instead of trying to prove the defendant innocent, they focused primarily on the legality of the impeachment procedural process and admissibility of evidence. The President’s lawyers also appealed to Members of the Parliament to keep Mr. Paksas in office even after the findings of the Constitutional Court.

“Who’s to judge the severity of [President’s] mistake?” asked Mr. Baublys, one of the President’s lawyers. He continued, “today you will be judging <…> and you still can stop from making a crime against your consciousness.”

The defense even called attention to the European Convention on Human Rights, insisting that the President was denied his right to fair and equal process. In addition, it stated that the five-month long impeachment process was “hasty and irresponsible” and that there was not enough time to get to the bottom of all the charges and facts. The field for arguments on interpretation for impeachment procedure was wide open and gave the defense plenty of opportunities to stall the process. The pace was also deliberate since the impeachment of the president was the first of the kind not only in Lithuania but also within the European practice of parliamentary powers.

In his closing speech, Mr. Paksas accused his opponents of creating a conspiracy against the President, which, according to him, was based on lies and illusions. During his remarks the President further tried to deepen the division in society caused by the impeachment process. He pointed to the work of the Parliament, internal security forces and preceding Presidents, indirectly calling them corrupt and biased against the interests of the Lithuanian people, and even referred to them as “real threats to the democratic system” of Lithuania. Mr. Paksas insisted that the so-called “conspiracy” against him was created because he promised to fight the “system of corruption” in the country, thereby “scaring the elite, which then decided to get rid of the rightfully elected President.”

Further attempting to undermine the democratic process, Mr. Paksas referred to the impeachment as the work of the communist security forces, which sank Lithuania into 50 years of tragic occupation by the Soviet Union. He also tried to draw parallels between his impeachment trial and the Alfred Dreyfus case. While later in his speech he recanted and admitted to making some mistakes, directly contradicting himself, Mr. Paksas tried to appeal to members of parliament and millions of viewers across the country by asking “are the mistakes of a few hours worth an impeachment?” He perhaps failed to notice that the impeachment process started long before and was not connected to his decision to appoint Mr. Borisov his advisor. Although the five month-long impeachment process compromised Lithuania’s regional standing, brought it to the verge of international isolation, practically stalled the daily business of government, brought the country to the precipice of judicial calamity and deeply divided the society, the President insisted that his actions had done no harm to Lithuania or its people. He labeled the process as a disconnected and unreasonable attempt to remove him from power, calling himself a victim of double standards.

Members of parliament, however, were not impressed by emotional speeches and personal appeals of the President and his defenders, as they gathered for a secret ballot vote in the main lobby of the Parliament at 7:05 AM (EST) on April 6. Two hours later, the impeachment vote became official, reaffirming Lithuania’s decision to continue with its democratic course, as it is gets ready to join the European Union on May 1.

Mr. Arturas Paulauskas, Chairman of the Parliament and the head of the social liberal party (New Union) will serve as the interim president. New elections will have to be announced by the Seimas within ten days from the impeachment and it must take place no longer than two months after the President is removed from office. It is expected that the special presidential election will be held in conjunction with EU Parliamentary elections on June 13, 2004.

Mr. Ceslovas Jursenas, belonging to the Social Democratic coalition, will serve as acting chairman of the Parliament.

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