Lithuania’s Constitutional Court ruled Thursday that the appointment of lawmaker Julius Sabatauskas as a judge of the Constitutional Court violated the constitution because he does not meet the requirement of at least 10 years of legal work experience.
The court said Sabatauskas, a member of the Social Democratic faction in parliament at the time of his nomination, does not satisfy the constitutional requirement that candidates for the court must have at least a decade of professional legal work as a lawyer.
Because of this, the Seimas failed to comply with the constitutional rule that only a person with the required legal experience – which presupposes the necessary professional qualifications for the post – may be appointed as a Constitutional Court judge, the ruling said.
The court clarified that legal work experience is accrued when a person obtains a legal education and works in a position that requires a university-level law degree. By contrast, a member of parliament is considered a professional politician, and work in the Seimas constitutes political, not legal, professional activity.
“The fact that a person with a university law degree performs some work does not mean that such work is, by that fact alone, legal work,” the court said.
The ruling noted that Sabatauskas earned a master’s degree in law in 2003 but has not worked in any position other than that of a member of parliament. While lawmakers are involved in drafting laws and other legal acts, the court said, even those with legal education do not thereby perform legal work or accumulate the type of legal experience required under the constitution.
The case was brought before the Constitutional Court by opposition lawmakers, who questioned whether Sabatauskas met the constitutional requirement for judges to have at least 10 years of legal work experience.
Sabatauskas himself commented that he will continue working in the parliament.
“I see it as God’s sign that my mission is in the Seimas. And it is not over yet,” he told reporters in the Seimas on Thursday.
The Lithuanian parliament, Seimas, on October 21 last year appointed Supreme Court Civil Cases Division Chairman Artūras Driukas and long-serving lawmaker Sabatauskas as Constitutional Court justices. Scholar Haroldas Šinkūnas was later appointed on a second attempt.
Sabatauskas has said he met the experience requirement because members of parliament are included in a government-approved list of legal positions. His nomination was submitted by Speaker of the Seimas Juozas Olekas, a fellow Social Democrat. Sabatauskas left the Lithuanian Social Democratic Party in September.
He has been elected to parliament since 2000.
The Constitutional Court consists of nine judges, with one-third renewed every three years. The judges appointed last October were due to take office in March.
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