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The chapter reviews the restoration and improvement of the independent Lithuanian judicial system and analyses the most important periods of the judicial reform that are frequently considered controversial, certain decisions of various state authorities, their interrelations and the search for their own “place” in the judicial system. This is done not only by analysing the respective legal acts of those periods but also by revealing the social, political and other conditions that existed at the time of adoption and implementation of these legal acts. The chapter focuses on the system of courts of general jurisdiction, which was first restored. The role of the official doctrine of the Constitutional Court in consolidating the independence of the functions of judges and courts and the place and importance of the Supreme Court of Lithuania in the judicial system and, in general, in the legal system of the State are emphasised. The role of the Ministry of Justice in restoring the judicial system is assessed. The success of the constitutional reform of courts—the establishment of a stable court system—was in principle determined by the fact that Lithuania had a sufficient number of qualified lawyers and could implement large-scale systemic legal reforms using its own resources. It is important that, at the beginning of the court reform and during its implementation, the reform was approved and considered as a priority by all branches of government. In Lithuania’s current legal and political reality, one can observe a paradox: while there is an obvious evolution in the development of the court system—the activities of the courts meet the standards of modern democracies governed by the rule of law—the manifestations of involution (regress) can be frequently observed in the attitudes of representatives of other branches of the government and politicians to the judiciary and its obligation and in their legal consciousness and political culture.

The article discloses the most striking breaches of the constitutional requirements; these are the constitutional doctrine requirements to be met by the penal legislation. While working on the article, the authors analyzed some legal acts adopted by the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and signed into law by the President of the Republic as of the year 2009. In the authors’ opinion, in case of the penal legislation, the most often breached requirements are the ones deriving from the principle of the rule of law, such as: legal acts shall be clearly understandable so that the subjects of legal relationship are able to understand what requirements they have to meet according to the law; legal rules shall be stable and ensure legal certainty as well as predictability of legal decisions; the force of legal acts shall be directed to the future; the principle of equality shall be respected and the court shall have a possibility to personalize a sentence or penalty in every individual case, etc. In addition, the article provides insight into some objective and subjective factors which cause essential insufficiencies in penal legislation and considers possibilities of improving the quality of penal legal acts.

The article introduces analysis of subjective grounds for guilt – a necessary condition for criminal liability of every person. Guilt is defined as a condemned and punishable by the state culprit’s integral relation (either intentional or through negligence) with the crime or criminal misdemeanour. The article reveals guilt’s connection with general attributes of a criminal act (age, capacity) and puts forward a justification for a state’s right and obligation both in legal and social sense to punish culprits. The article is based on research of application of guilt concept in case-law since the Lithuanian Criminal Code came into force (May 1, 2013). It shows that occasional defects and mistakes occur as unclear, ambiguous conclusions about forms, contents of guilt or as inconsistent characterizations of guilt forms, separate features of its sorts. Also, consequences caused by these mistakes for participants in the criminal process are evaluated. The article also explores provisions of criminal law which determine the concept of guilt. Analysis led to conclusion that reckless guilt in the Criminal Code is defined insufficiently, because it does not provide any description of intellectual reckless guilt (criminal negligence) or is described only partially (criminally false assumption). In justification of negligent guilt in culprit’s criminal act, objective and subjective criteria should be used for both forms of negligence. Also, differences and similarities of criminal negligence and criminally false assumption are presented.

Straipsnyje, pasitelkiant naujus šaltinius, išsamiau ir būtent materialiosios baudžiamosios teisės srityje atskleidžiami Aukščiausiojo Teismo dalyvavimo teisėkūroje būdai ir problemos., The Supreme Court has been quite intensively, directly and officially involved in the criminal legislation, acting as an institution or through representatives, by initiating, preparing drafts of Criminal Code, criminal law amendments and providing advisory opinions. The aforementioned conclusions of the article are drawn from the analysis of drafts of criminal laws, explanatory notes, opinions and other preparatory documents of the criminal legislation, the legislation in force, jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, legal doctrine.

This paper examines the prevalence of psychotropic substance (tobacco, alcohol, narcotic drugs) use among inmates of Lithuanian prisons and the association between drug use and psychosocial factors.The questionnaire used was based on the ESPAD questionnaire, modified to fit the specific respondent group. At the time of the study there were 9634 inmates in Lithuanian penal institutions; 1304 of them participated in the study, 67 (5.2%) were women, 115 (8.8%) boy minors, and 1122 (86%) men. Statistical analysis was carried out using EpilInfo 6.04.It was revealed that 48.7% of the prisoners had used drugs at least once in their lives, 13.8% of prisoners currently used narcotic drugs, and 39.8% had first used illicit (narcotic) drugs in prison. 85.3% currently smoked tobacco and 92.1% had drunk alcohol at least once in their lives.Psychotropic substances are often used due to their psychological impact. Imprisoned people constitute a high-risk group of drug users and distributors of narcotic drugs. Consequently, the problem of psychotropic substance addiction in penal institutions awakens more concern than the same problem in the general society. Intravenous narcotic drugs stimulating dangerous behavior are prevalent in Lithuanian prisons.