Specialieji vietos savivaldos principai Lietuvos respublikoje
Special principles of local self-government in the republic of Lithuania

Summary/Abstract: This article analyses system, formulation of titles and content of special principles of local self-government defined in the Law on Amendments to the Law on Local Self-government of the Republic of Lithuania of 2008. The article deals with the problem if the principles of local self-government stated in the Law fully describe the qualitative essence of this institute. The aim of the article is to determine directions for improvement of local self-government principles’ system and formulation of titles. Special principles of local self-government belong to one type of local self-government principles; another type is constitution principles. Special local self-government principles are defined as principles of administrative law stated in the legislation, which characterize basis, rules and sources of organization and functioning of the local self-government, as one of the public government systems. In the Law on Amendments to the Law on Local Self-government of 2008, a separate article specifies twelve special principles of local selfgovernment. Five of them are identical to the constitutional local-self government principles. The law not only states the principles, but also briefly describes their content (except from the constitutional principles). Most of the principles are specified for the institute of local self-government using the word „municipality“ in the titles. Analysis of local self-government principles allows to state that there is a lack of consistency in their formulation and writing out. The law does not disclose the content of all the principles; the characteristic of content of two special principles specified in resolutions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania, which comform with constitutional principles, are different, formulation of titles of the principles differs as well. The system of special local self-government principles can be improved by refusing to include in the Law the constitutional local self-government principles. The special principles mentioned in Law should specify the constitutional local selfgovernment principles. A less radical alternative is to refer to constitutional and special local self-government principles in a separate article of the Law. If the Law lists constitutional local self-government principles, the constitutional principle of organization of local self-government institutions and principle of legislative regulation of their activity should be included as well. Such reorganization of the writing out of constitutional local self-government principles would emphasize the principles of economic independency, control and supervision, and others. They would help to specify constitutional local selfgovernment principles. Content of all special local selfgovernment principles should be described in the Law. Another possible direction for improvement of the principles is to unify the formulations of the titles. It is necessary to refuse the formulation of the principle‘s title if it is directly related with the institute of local self-government. Formulation of titles of special principles of local selfgovernment should be similar to formulation of general principles of law, consitutuional and administravive law (i.e. representative democracy, publicity) and to make them specific for the system of local self-government. When amendments to the local self-government principles are being made, it is important to respect principles of other closely related institutes (i.e. public administration, public service). This should be done after an extensive comparative analysis of special principles of individual institutes of administrative law.

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