VILNIUS - Following weeks of political wrangling, the Constitutional Court on May 25 ruled that impeached Rolandas Paksas would never again be allowed to hold public office, dashing his chances in upcoming presidential elections and burying any hope of resuscitating his turbulent political career.
The court's verdict held that no person who has been removed from office by a vote of the Seimas (Lithuania's parliament) should serve in official capacities such as prime minister, member of parliament, government minister or judge.
In the court's official explanation of its decision, justices argued that the constitution's provision for impeachment implied that removal from office should be permanent, and that to allow an impeached official to hold office of any kind contradicted both the spirit and the letter of the country's basic law.
The ruling, which was issued following court hearings held on May 18, went far beyond the hopes of parliamentarians, who had passed amendments to the election law in early May that would have kept impeached politicians from holding office for only five years.
For this reason, the court's official statement was somewhat paradoxical in that it claimed that amendments adopted in the Seimas were unconstitutional, as they allowed impeached officials the opportunity to return to government after a set period of time.
"To be honest, I didn't expect this," said MP Julius Sabatauskas, who argued the Seimas' case in front of the court.
"What the verdict shows is that, if anything, we [parliamentarians] were too cautious with the law we passed. The verdict says that once someone has been impeached for violating the constitution, he'll never be able to remove that stain," Sabatauskas said.
Given the strict provisions justices set out for impeached politicians, the ruling came as a death blow to the Paksas camp, which had brought the case before the court in the hope that the Seimas' election law amendments would be overturned.
Paksas became the first-ever European president to be removed from his post when the Seimas voted in a supermajority to oust him on April 6.
"He has no more chances-none," said MP Aloyzas Sakalas, who chaired the initial parliamentary commission that investigated wrongdoing in the Paksas administration.
In response to the Central Electoral Commission's refusal to register Paksas as a candidate in the June 13 elections, which will be held to fill the current vacancy in the Presidential Palace, his supporters waged an aggressive legal campaign with political overtones.
Paksas himself had publicly mused that the court would make its final decision based on political motives.
"The decisions of the Constitutional Court are final and not subject to appeal. This means that no one has the right to question its motives," Sabatauskas said.
Representatives of Paksas' Liberal Democrat party refused comment.
With the question of Paksas' participation in the election resolved, the final landscape of the presidential campaign finally fell into place little more than two weeks before the poll was scheduled.
Former President Valdas Adamkus, the frontrunner in the race, was forced into an uncomfortable position as a result of the ruling, as he had initially predicated his candidacy on the sole desire to defeat Paksas.
Adamkus, 77, lost his re-election bid to Paksas in the second round of elections in January 2003.
Apparently ignoring earlier promises not to stand again for the nation's highest office if Paksas were banned from participating, the Adamkus campaign issued a statement shortly after the ruling stating that he would not pull out.
Citing exhortation from Prime Minister Algirdas Brazauskas, whom Adamkus defeated to become president in 1998, and his desire to act as a politically uniting force, the statement announced the elder statesman's determination to recapture the office he lost over a year ago.
"I asked political parties faithful to democracy...to agree on a single candidate whom I would have supported as well. Unfortunately, this did not happen," read the statement.
The four other candidates for the post include Ceslovas Jursenas and Vilija Blinkeviciute, nominees from the ruling Social Democrat and New Union-Social Liberal parties, respectively.
