A professional look at the prosecutors’ arrest scandal: where are its roots and will it pay off?

According to the prosecution on Wednesday, prosecutors from the Prosecution Department of the Prosecutor General (GP) Nerijus Marcinkevičius and Ugnius Vyčinas were arrested, private individuals.

“All law enforcement scandals create a vacuum, a sense of distrust that destroys,” he said Wednesday. 15 minutes Julius Rėksnys, the head of the Prosecutors’ Union, said, first of all, in sympathy with his honest colleagues, who have been in the civil service for many years.

“Lithuania has not yet emerged from the so-called correspondence, transparency and clarity scandal of STT officials, which we do not have so far, and now we have a very serious fiscal earthquake, when three prosecutors are detained at the same time. The question is: is this not a systemic failure of pre-trial investigative institutions? ”asked Ignas Vėg retlė, president of the Council of Lawyers, rhetorically.

If the allegations are substantiated, we want to hope that the police will be freed from corruption, I.Vėgėlė said.

He added: “If the allegations are substantiated, we want to hope that the police will finally break free from these corrupt shackles.”

“How do officials use the data? How do they handle the situation? After all, is the ethics of officials properly regulated? ”I.Vėgėlė continued to ask questions. At the same time, he did not rule out the possibility that the police could corroborate the accusations against the lawyer mentioned in the scandal: “The community is large and, of course, there may be another lawyer who commits crimes.”

Prosecutors condemned routine and stagnation?

The key question is about possible systemic diseases in the public ministry, 15 minutes referred to the head of the Union of Prosecutors J.Rėksnis, who was demoted last March, mainly due to open criticism of the management and publicity of the internal prosecutions of the prosecutor’s office.

“A person comes to the prosecutor’s office and, so to speak, inherits the specialization of his work until the end of his life. Nothing shines on you: you are, for example, an investigator of economic and financial crimes, you will be with him all your life. Rotation would be the way out, motivation would increase. And when there is no rotation, prosecutors and investigators grow with each other over time. And the relationship of officials becomes friendly, friendly: officials begin to baptize children of others, and so on, “said the leader of the prosecutors union.

I look at what is happening in Russia, in Ukraine, and sometimes the impression is that we have escaped little from that Soviet approach.

J.Rėksnys added: “I observe what is happening in Russia, in Ukraine, and sometimes it seems that we have escaped little. From the Soviet point of view, I am the boss and you are a fool. Or vice versa. That’s probably the scariest thing about us, because the people who become leaders with us often don’t realize that they should trust their subordinates more. When people can make their own decisions in the area for which they are responsible, they have some form of self-government – those people always take care of everything. Prosecutors’ self-government would also help solve many problems related to career opportunities, executive choice, and the like. ”

Minister urges not to rush or dramatize

For his part, the Minister of Justice, Elvinas Jankevičius, urged not to dramatize the reports on Wednesday and not to rush to draw conclusions. According to the Minister, even if the accusations are specific in this investigation, the state of the justice system in Lithuania is not tragic and the corruption in the institutions of our country has not been paralyzed.

I wouldn’t say we live in some kind of clan. It is definitely not that the situation in our country is very bad, dramatic, said Minister E. Jankevičius on the root of corruption.

“It is natural that there can still be manifestations of corruption in law enforcement. However, I certainly would not say that we live in some kind of clan, I compare our country with other European countries. The index of perception of corruption in Lithuania is improving, the number of corruption crimes is not so high. Comparing Lithuania in the context of other countries of the European Union, we are in the midst of corruption. It is definitely not that the situation in our country is very bad, dramatic, “said E. Jankevičius.

STT demonstrates activity

“Due to the paucity of data, it is very difficult to assess this particular case. Unlike the STT correspondence history, in which three attorneys were arrested and we had more data, the attorneys had access to pretrial investigative material and accusations made. ” 15 minutes The President of the Bar Association spoke.

In the words of I. Vėgėlė, various evaluation sections of this event are possible.

“The first option: STT wants to show its activity and actions. After the so-called” correspondence scandal “, doubts arose about whether the STT, as an institution, was performing its functions correctly. Such a question was raised by both Seimas members and journalists In a word, it may be a desire to show that one is exposed, one would like to believe that if this is the case, it will not be clear later that the individuals have been detained, the allegations are unfounded.

The second option: If there really is enough data in the latest investigation, especially since prosecutions against prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office can be initiated and suspicions can only be raised by the Attorney General himself, it may also indicate systemic problems in our enforcement institutions. pre-trial investigation, “said I.Vėgėlė.

Although scandals that rocked law enforcement itself have abounded in recent years, I.Vėgėlė predicted that various suspicions and scandalous arrests will occur more frequently in the future than one would like.

“It is necessary to fundamentally review and rethink whether officials are really valued in Lithuania in the same way as all other citizens in Lithuania.” Is the principle of equality before the law, the equal application of the law, equally true for all? If an ordinary citizen did the same, what does an official do in some cases? Would he really be justified and said that the time limits for dealing with an ethical violation have expired, or would he be prosecuted?

Until we systematically start treating all citizens equally, until managers start treating officials as strictly as ordinary citizens, until clear rules are established, then we will have the same problems. ” I. V I.gėlė is convinced.

In his way, the chief of the prosecutors union joined the chief of the bar.

“There’s been a lot of talk lately about the need for some sort of official watchdog.” I will make my point visually: if there is a shark at the top of the food chain, someone who is no longer threatened by anything, then they will feel unpunished and their special status will mean they can do anything. In this case, we are talking about officials who have full immunity, and their responsibility is determined only by the decision of the immediate superior. As for the need to prevent corruption, in this place the Seimas, politicians could devise some kind of institution of the ombudsman so that someone can inspect these officials with impunity, “said J. Rėksnys.

“We only pretend to be the rule of law”

I.Vėgėlė said he could not forget the STT chief’s recent visit to the Seimas.

“If the president of the Bar Association said that lawyers are free to go to a judge and speak about a particular case, perhaps the entire press would be full of headlines that lawyers have the right to influence judges. But when the STT chief of the Seimas tribune says he sees nothing wrong, when an STT official goes to speak about a specific case to a judge, we don’t talk about it or write about it! So, as I understand it, we don’t live in that state, we only pretend to be a state governed by the rule of law, unfortunately, ”the lawyer lamented.

Incidentally, he unsuccessfully recalled searching for a publicly available code of ethics for STT officials: “Maybe it is, but I didn’t find one.”

How does the head of the I.Vėgėlė Bar Association evaluate the fact that one of the representatives of his union is in the new scandal? A lawyer who practices in Kaunas is mentioned as a participant in illegal meetings, possibly as a mediator in the execution of criminal agreements between suspects and law enforcement officers.

“Of eleven people, accusations were made against a lawyer. There are 3,300 people in our community. As soon as we receive information that a lawyer has committed a misdemeanor, has acted illegally or even more criminally, we react immediately. The Code of Ethics For Lawyers it is available to the public and our decisions are public. I can repeat the same thing now: if it really turns out that a fault has been committed, we will take action immediately. Or that person does not work among the lawyers temporarily, or that he is eliminated from the list of lawyers entirely. But at this stage it is difficult to talk about it, especially since the prosecution changes suspicions or accusations very frequently, “said the head of the Bar Association.

If it really turns out that a fault has been committed, we will take immediate action.

In the words of I.Vėgėlė, the Kaunas lawyer mentioned in the GP and STT investigation did not necessarily act criminally, so far there is a lack of specific data on the role of this lawyer.

“It just caught our eye then. The question is, are those officials guilty of illegally transmitting that data, or is the lawyer guilty of listening to that data? What did he do with that information? Did he use it legally or illegally? I think it’s still too early to talk about all this until we know a lot, we’re not even familiar with specific suspicions, “said I.Vėgėlė.

He emphasized that it is when the most specific data reaches the institution under his leadership that it will be possible to talk about the evaluation and the actions of the Bar Association.

“When the STT raised allegations against three attorneys in a previous investigation, the Bar Association was surprised because, in our view, we saw unsubstantiated allegations. And the articles of suspicion in themselves were extremely rarely used in the Penal Code. In this new case, the articles of the CC are, so to speak, classic, corrupt. But it is even more difficult to say something. I would suggest suspicions, “he repeated. 15 minutes interlocutor.

The minister proposes to wait for the court

Recently, the public has been confused by scandals, which don’t mention “standard” criminals, but law enforcement officers on the other side of the barricades, law enforcement officers: police, prosecutors, judges, lawyers, officials special services. Isn’t this special trend of particular concern to the Minister of Justice of Lithuania?

“I, as a politician, should not comment on pre-trial investigations, law enforcement work in general,” E. Jankevičius avoided diplomatically strict evaluations. The minister immediately added: “This is a normal procedure: there are complaints, a pre-trial investigation is being carried out. The guilt of these people has not yet been proven in any way, they are illegal, the verdict delivered in court. So it is too early to conclude that law enforcement is working. “

“Perhaps then it would be easier for you to adopt another prevailing view in society: scandalous investigations often start noisy, but often end without results?”, – we asked E.Jankevičius.

– The problem here is that some pre-trial investigations start very strong. It attracts a lot of attention and sometimes accuses people whose guilt has not yet been proven.

The pre-trial investigation is a serious matter that must be taken seriously, but the people have not yet been convicted. Therefore, it is unethical to draw preliminary conclusions.

– Society often tends to demand the harshest possible punishments, and the government has been considering initiatives to the contrary recently.

– Just on Wednesday, we discussed in the Government a project according to which several small, non-dangerous, financial and property crimes would no longer be criminalized, they would be subject to administrative responsibility.

Today, courts and pretrial investigation institutions are overwhelmed. Little facts are huge burdens. However, large cases that are important to the state take too long. If we remove the burden of law enforcement in terms of small crimes, it is likely to increase attention and speed up work on large and resounding investigations.