Independent constitutional courts - safeguard against legal nihilism

Tuesday, 24 October 2017, the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova, Mr Tudor Panţîru had a meeting with the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Mrs Dalia Grybauskaitė.

The discussions focused on the imperative of the rule of law, the reform of the legal system and Lithuania's assistance in strengthening the activity of constitutional courts and democratic processes. According to the President of Lithuania, in the context in which the states from Eastern Partnership face challenges regarding the independence of constitutional courts, the Lithuanian side is willing to share its experience in strengthening the public confidence in a constitutional court. In this sense, given that the rule of law represents the corner stone of a democratic state, Mrs Dalia Grybauskaitė remarked that „a constitutional court plays a key role in safeguarding democracy and protecting fundamental human rights”. And this, according to the high-level official, can be achieved by the constitutional courts through ensuring the transparency of democratic processes, in accordance with the Supreme Law.

The meeting took place in the context of the Vilnius Forum, which was organized by the Constitutional Court of Lithuania within the Cooperation Project „Assistance to the Constitutional Courts of Georgia, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine in Ensuring the Implementation and Protection of the Principles of the Rule of Law in the Context of Regional Challenges”, supported and funded by the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the Development Cooperation and Democracy Promotion Programme. This cooperation format is a collaboration of constitutional courts in view of achieving high level objectives of the represented states, correlated with the European Union aim to consolidate the democratic processes in the Eastern Partnership states.

As a reminder, the contribution of Lithuania to the strengthening of the activity of the Constitutional Court of Moldova was expressed by its participation in the international consortium for the implementation of the EU-funded project „Support to the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova”. The project was implemented between February 2016 and October 2017 and targeted the acceleration of the sustainable reform of the justice sector in the Republic of Moldova and the assurance of the proper functioning of the rule of law by strengthening the Constitutional Court.

These pictures have been offered by the courtesy of the Administration of the President of Lithuania