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PARLIAMENTARY FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY NEWS
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE : LITHUANIA ‘ S EXPERIENCE
BY DOMAS PETRULIS MEMBER OF THE LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT
In 1980s , significant changes in political and social life took place . Those changes were related to the ideas of revival , publicity and democracy . Transformations in public life allowed to speak more openly of unrevealed historical facts and phenomena , which determined the fate of the state of Lithuania and led to the loss of independence . Since 1987 people in mass meetings , in the press and in public events started to demand more actively their political , personal rights and freedoms to be restored and to give Lithuania more economic , social and cultural freedom . The fight for freedom became more focused and better organised . Striving for independence transformed into the demand for sovereignty which in the end meant political autonomy . Implementation of the rule of Lithuanian law over the law of the Soviet Union was one of the key political and legal objectives . Implementation of the principle of the rule of law had to change the basis of political and legal structure and the legal framework imposed on Lithuania had to cease to exist . According to the sources of that time the battle for the right to have our own rights began . It is worth mentioning that the mechanism of functioning of the power was also changing . Single party rule lost its former might and the main decision-making process started to concentrate in the Supreme Council . The Supreme Council which used to implement the decisions adopted by bodies of the political parties gradually turned into the decision-making centre . New aspects of activity emerged and they already remind of the work of a traditional parliament . Representatives of the reform movement Sąjūdis elected to the Supreme Council raised and addressed the most relevant issues of social life . Due to these democratic transitions the will of the USSR was taken into account less and less and the nature of work of the Supreme Council and of the lawyers who worked there changed . There was the so-called war of laws , resistance to the legal framework that was imposed on Lithuania . One of the most outstanding works was drafting of a new constitution . When an independent state was restored this draft Constitution was used as a legal material for the Provisional Basic Law of the Republic of