Vietos savivaldos sistema pirmojoje ir antrojoje Lietuvos respublikoje

Abstract

This article analyzes the system of Lithuanian local self-government, its changes, and its main reforms. It compares the First Republic (1918-1940) and the Second Republic (1990-2010) with respect to the way local government institutions were elected and the possibilities for citizen participation in local affairs. A comparison of the legal regulations of both periods shows that in the Second Republic from 1990 onwards the system of self-government and the laws defining it underwent frequent changes while the First Republic featured only a few reforms and several minor changes in law. Thus the legal regulation of self-government in the Second Republic turns out to have been relatively unstable so far. Some of the elements of self-government in the First Republic seem to have been more progressive than those that exist now. Self-government in the First Republic was manifest on two levels, providing for the election of district and county councils, whereas now we can only elect municipal councils. Districts were divided into elderships which elected their elders, whereas now the elder is apponted by the director of the municipality administration. In the First Republic, the problem of territorial representation in village municipalities was solved in a better way: the district‘s territory was divided into precincts where a majoritarian election system prevailed. From 1929 on a different system was chosen: each eldership elected its representative to the district council, and each district council picked its representative to the county council. Hence there was an attempt on both the district and the county levels to preserve territorial representativeness—something that cannot be claimed for the present-day election system. [...]