Lithuanian president seeks approval to dismiss convicted judge

President Gitanas Nausėda has asked Lithuania’s parliament, the Seimas, to approve the dismissal of Court of Appeal judge Viktoras Kažys, who was convicted in a corruption case, LRT reported.

Nausėda signed a decree on Friday seeking Kažys’s removal for conduct that had damaged the standing of the judiciary, following the court ruling against him becoming final. The president appoints Court of Appeal judges with the Seimas’s approval and on the advice of the Judges Council.

The final ruling, issued on September 14, found that Kažys had promised to accept a €10,000 bribe in return for acquitting several people of the charges against them. The Judges Council described committing a crime as the most serious form of conduct that undermines a judge’s standing.

Kažys asked the council not to rush its decision and to wait for the Supreme Court to comment on his case. His judicial powers had already been suspended, and he had not heard any cases since his arrest.

Kažys was convicted in the same Vijūnėlė mansion corruption case as Ričardas Malinauskas, then mayor of Druskininkai. He was fined €12,500 for one offence and acquitted of another.

Kažys and other judges and lawyers were arrested in February 2019 as part of a large-scale investigation into corruption in the legal system. After lengthy proceedings, judges, lawyers, assistants and businesspeople were convicted; most received fines, with more than €500,000 due to be paid to the state.