Administracinės teisenos naujovės teismų praktikos kontekste
Novelties of Judicial Administrative Procedure in the Context of Earlier Case Law

Summary/Abstract: In 2016 statutory law on judicial administrative procedure was significantly amended. This inevitably leads to question whether case law, which was laid out in light of earlier statutory law, is going to be followed or can be ignored. The paper deals with this issue, particularly focusing on questions when it is mandatory, permitted or illegal to follow this previous case-law. Many different aspects of regulation were amended and, since different aspects of judicial procedure are closely inter-connected, in order for new statutory law to take root in a sophisticated manner, applicability of previous case law ought to based on well-defined criteria. Accordingly, the article is focused on the aim to provide such criteria. The analysis is based on theoretical insights from legal literature and jurisprudence, laid out by the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania and Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania. They led to conclusion that answers to aforementioned questions can strongly vary. the basic principle is that case law is followed where the same statutory norm is applicable. However, when we meet a new statutory norm, case-law can serve as a source about the content of values, principles recognised by law. Also some of new statutory norms carry resemblance to norms from statutes, concerning other issues or different types of judicial procedure (for example, civil procedure). When there are no material differences of context, it is useful to follow case law of these norms. Also, in Supreme Administrative Court‘s of Lithuania earlier judicial practice, some principles can be found, which are enforced by the new legislation – it might be possible, that new statutory law was created by codification of these principles from case law. therefore, application of these norms can be carried out with regard to this case law, where the same principle was applied before it was directly prescribed by statutory law. The paper also presents specifics aspects and cases, illustrating how these criteria can function in practice.

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