Matjošaitytė asks Seimas to consider no-confidence motion without her

Laura Matjošaitytė, a member of Lithuania’s Central Electoral Commission, has asked the Seimas to consider an opposition-led no-confidence motion against her in her absence, LRT reported.

Parliament Speaker’s adviser Gitana Letukienė told BNS on Monday that Matjošaitytė had informed the speaker she would not attend Tuesday’s sitting and had asked for the motion to be considered without her. The motion concerns consultations she allegedly provided to the Nemuno Aušra party and an alleged attempt to conceal them.

The motion was previously scheduled for September 24, but was not considered after Matjošaitytė said she was away and unable to attend. She has also missed public meetings of the electoral commission and the LRT Council for several weeks and has not spoken to journalists.

Those who initiated the motion say publicly released information about her consultations, the alleged concealment and her failure to recuse herself from votes on issues related to the party show that she no longer meets the standards of trust required of a commission member. The motion says neither the party nor Matjošaitytė declared their cooperation, and claims that an effort to remove identifying metadata from a document suggests the relationship was deliberately concealed.

Under the Seimas statute, the vote on no confidence must be secret and requires the support of more than half of all MPs, or at least 71. BNS reported that more than 30 MPs from the Homeland Union, Liberal and Democrats parliamentary groups initiated the motion.

Delfi reported that Matjošaitytė, who is a lawyer, advised Nemuno Aušra before the 2024 parliamentary election. In September that year, just over a month before the vote, she allegedly emailed the party’s deputy leader, Robert Puchovičius, a draft response to the commission about sources of funding and asked him to transfer it to a Word document he had created “so my metadata would not remain.” Neither the party nor Matjošaitytė declared their previous cooperation.

Matjošaitytė later said she had not been paid, but has declined to discuss the details, citing lawyer-client confidentiality. Party leader Remigijus Žemaitaitis says she did not advise the party or receive payment, and that party members prepared the draft and asked her only to review it.

The commission is investigating the scope of the consultations, while the Lithuanian Bar Association and the Chief Official Ethics Commission have also launched inquiries. Matjošaitytė chaired the electoral commission from 2017 to 2021 and returned as a member in May 2025, after her candidacy was put forward by then Justice Minister Rimantas Mockus, who was delegated by Nemuno Aušra. She has said that votes on alleged campaign-finance violations by the party did not create a conflict of interest or grounds for her to recuse herself.