Lithuanian parliament to vote on Davulis as Constitutional Court chief in secret ballot

The Lithuanian parliament will hold a secret ballot on Tuesday to decide whether to appoint Tomas Davulis as the new chair of the Constitutional Court, state news agency BNS reports.

Davulis, who has served as a justice on the court since 2023, was nominated for the role by President Gitanas Nausėda. If approved, he will replace outgoing chair Gintaras Goda, whose term expires this month. The court is currently led on an interim basis by justice Vytautas Mizaras.

In his presentation to lawmakers earlier this month, Davulis pledged to improve public access to constitutional justice and ensure broader consideration of arguments in cases. He noted that while Lithuania introduced individual constitutional complaints in 2019, the number of accepted cases has since declined, alongside a drop in overall filings. To address this, he called for more active outreach to inform and engage the public, as well as stronger dialogue with lower courts—which supply most of the court’s caseload.

A legal scholar with 28 years of experience in teaching, research, and lawmaking, Davulis previously served as dean of Vilnius University’s Law Faculty for a decade before his appointment to the bench.

Under Lithuanian law, the nine-justice Constitutional Court is renewed by one-third every three years. The chair is selected from among sitting justices by parliament, following a presidential nomination. Earlier this month, three new justices—Artūras Drigotas, Artūras Driukas, and Haroldas Šinkūnas—joined the court, replacing Gintaras Goda, Daiva Petrylaitė, and Janina Stripeikienė.