Constitutional Court accepts Sinkevičius challenge, rejects Šimonytė case

Lithuania’s Constitutional Court has agreed to examine an opposition complaint over the legality of Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius’s government, while rejecting a ruling-party request concerning former Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė’s cabinet, LRT reported.

The opposition factions of the Seimas representing the Conservatives and Liberals asked the court to determine whether the governing majority breached the Constitution by registering the government programme before the Cabinet had been appointed.

They argued that the programme’s provisions may be drafted and coordinated before the government is approved, but that they can be officially submitted and considered as the programme of a specific government only after that government has been formed by the prime minister and approved by the president.

The applicants said presenting a programme for a government that had not yet been formed or approved by the president was incompatible with the principle that the government, as a collective institution, bears joint responsibility to the Seimas for implementing, preparing and presenting its programme.

They also argued that the Seimas’s approval of the programme not only endorses a political document but grants a specific government the authority to act, meaning the relevant procedural stages cannot be treated as mere formalities.

At the same time, the court said it would not assess the governing Social Democrats’ request concerning the constitutionality of Šimonytė’s government programme.

“The powers of the 18th Government have ended, and therefore the legal relations regulated by the Seimas resolution of December 11, 2020, have also ended,” the court said.

The court said it does not assess legal acts that can no longer be applied because they governed relations that have ended. It added that intervention in the legal regulation governing approval of the 18th Government’s programme and the granting of powers to that government would therefore be pointless.

BNS reported that the opposition Conservatives and Liberals decided to approach the court after it emerged that the draft programme of the 21st Government had been registered with the Seimas sitting secretariat on July 3, identifying its submitter as “the Government, designated Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius”.

The president approved the composition of the government by decree several days later, on July 7.

In response, the Social Democrats prepared their request concerning the approval of Šimonytė’s government programme six years ago. They said the Seimas procedure for adopting that resolution had begun one hour and 49 minutes before the legal act officially approving the government’s composition came into force.

Šimonytė’s Cabinet ended its work in December 2024.