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“The Seimas Board appreciates the public’s right to express their opinion, but requests that petitions be submitted in accordance with the relevant law,” Seimas spokesperson Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen said in the gist of the resolution.
During the meeting, it was pointed out that the submitted request does not contain personal data or signatures, there is no possibility of identifying people, so said letter should not be considered in the context of the Board.
During the session, the Social Democrat Julius Sabatauskas stated that in Lithuania there is no possibility for citizens to remove a member of the Seimas from the functions assigned to him.
“I draw attention to the fact that in our political and legal system there is no possibility for citizens to remove one or another elected person from office, otherwise we would return to the Soviet system,” said J. Sabatauskas.
According to him, the question of the elimination of TVRaskevičius could be considered if the committee members present such an initiative or if signatures of distrust are collected in the Seimas.
“The signatures that the Seimas receives, in one way or another, without seeing those signatures, because there are only surnames, are a message for the Seimas of what the part of society thinks, no matter how big. But the Seimas decides: this is the essence of democracy and the rule of law.
If we open Pandora’s box and go back to Soviet times, I really don’t want to go back to Soviet times, “said J. Sabatauskas.
Radvilė Morkūnaitė-Mikulėnienė, the largest of the conservative faction, emphasized that the most important message of the meeting was: “That the work of parliament is not governed by signatures, the expression of democracy is elections, where people vote and choose representatives of the nation “.
The peasant Jonas Jarutis affirmed that the public has the right to have an opinion in different ways: “It is a referendum, a law of petitions, it regulates how it is formalized.”
Conservative Jurgis Razma said he did not believe there were any objective signs that TVRaskevičius was performing poorly as head of the committee.
“We understand why it has come under attack and the development of those lists. I think it is necessary to address those harmful and unconstitutional emerging trends and evaluate that initiative accordingly.
It is possible to remind people that there are civilized and correct ways to file petitions, both electronically and directly, ”said J. Razma.
In February, those who call themselves publicists presented boxes to the president of the Seimas Viktorija Čmilyte-Nielsen with supposedly more than 365 thousand. Signatures collected online calling for the removal of Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, representative of the Freedom Party, from the post of chairman of the Seimas Human Rights Committee.
Vaida Servetkienė, acting Chancellor of the Seimas, recalled that all petitions, requests and complaints are examined according to the established procedure.
“Once received, it is evaluated in each case what criteria are met, be it a request, a complaint or a referral, if there are indications of a petition, it is referred to the Petitions Commission to evaluate if the requirements of the request, “he recalled.
The signatories of the petition demand the appointment of a new president of the Human Rights Committee, claiming that TVRaskevičius “does not represent the rights and interests of the majority of the Lithuanian people, but carries out activities contrary to human rights, promoting the interests of straits of sexual minorities “.
