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PARLIAMENTARY FORUM FOR DEMOCRACY NEWS
JUSTICE DURING TRANSITIONAL PERIOD. LITHUANIA‘ S EXPERIENCE
BY AGNĖ BILOTAITĖ MEMBER OF THE LITHUANIAN PARLIAMENT
After the restoration of Lithuania „ s independence in 1990, the problems of transition from socialistic planned economy to market economy had to be solved, as well as the issue of the Soviet Union( later Russian) occupation army withdrawal. People and religious communities had to be given back state expropriated assets, land. These features were common for most Eastern European countries – justice, ownership, democratical freedom and rights had to be restored. However, the transition from undemocratical, totalitarian regime to free market and democratical society was not easy. The problems, inherited from the past, had to be solved. Released political prisoners and exiles demanded restoration of justice and punishment for those who had commited crimes against humanity. Regulations had to be established how to treat employees of liquidated secret services and their secret coworkers. Secret services were the main regime support and tool in the totalitarian state. They had penatrated into very different spheres of social life. During 1970-1990 12000 people were involved in the work of the secret service KGB. Although KGB was hurriedly destroying its archive and carried it to Russia, about 2 kilometers of KGB cases were left in Lithuania: 94000 criminal proceedins, surveillance cases. The society demanded the right to be acknowledged with these documents, although the other part demanded to leave behind all crimes of the past. It was so called „ Fat Line Policy ‟ when the past and the present were separated, when the only assessment criterion for officials had to be their competencies and loyalty for the new government.