Understanding the Mechanism of Individual Constitutional Complaints in Lithuania: Main Features and Challenges of the First Years of Application

Abstract

Background: The mechanism of individual constitutional complaints has been in place in most European states. In the constitutional legal practice of European states, constitutional complaints as the specific procedural instrument for protecting a person’s constitutional rights and freedoms have become an increasingly acceptable, applicable, and justifiable measure. However, Lithuania has introduced this mechanism of human rights protection only with constitutional amendments of 2019. This article examines the legal regulation governing the institution of constitutional complaints, as well as the use of this institution in Lithuania in 2019–2022. The research aims to shed light on the choice of the Lithuanian model of constitutional complaints and its main features, as well as to identify the problematic aspects of this model. Methods: To reveal theoretical and practical aspects of the question under consideration, this article combines different methods of scientific inquiry, including analysis of documents, as well as the logical, systemic, critical, comparative, teleological, and linguistic methods of analysis. The method of document content analysis was used to analyse the content of relevant normative and jurisprudential research sources. This approach used the text of the analysed documents to identify relevant words and phrases, contextualise their usage, and link the acquired data to statements in specialised literature. The analysis hinged on theoretical methods, particularly systemic and logical analysis, used to analyse virtually all the aspects discussed in the paper. Comparative analysis was used to compare the legal regulation of the constitutional complaint model in other Central and Eastern European countries and the Lithuanian legal regulation on similar issues. Teleological and linguistic methods of analysis have been used to clarify the content of the ambiguously understood provisions governing the individual constitutional com- plaint model, the true intentions of the legislator, and the meaning of the concepts contained in the legislation. The paper also analyses the statistical information on the admissibility of constitutional complaints in Lithuania and other aspects of using this human rights protection mechanism in 2019–2022. Results and conclusion. The paper concludes that after the amendments to the Constitution concerning the consolidation of individual constitutional complaints entered into force in 2019, Lithuania can no longer be categorised among the states with a limited scope of entities entitled