Seimas to debate amendments allowing Paksas to run in elections

The amendments, tabled by the ruling bloc, would allow an impeached person to be elected president or a member of the Seimas following ten years after his or her removal from office.

The government has backed the legislation and proposed that the Seimas turn down an alternative amendment, put forward by the opposition, that would allow an impeached person to run for parliament, but would prevent him or her from being elected as president or holding the post of the speaker of the parliament.

Paksas has been barred from running for either president or national parliament since his impeachment back in 2004.

The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2011 that the lifetime ban on Paksas to stand for parliament was disproportionate and ran counter to the European Convention on Human Rights.

Lithuania faces sanctions from the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers if amendments opening the way for him to run in elections make no headway in the Seimas by October.

The Lithuanian Constitutional Court has ruled that a person removed from office through impeachment can never again hold a public office that requires an oath and that the Constitution needs to be amended to lift the ban.

Paksas was ousted by impeachment in April 2004 after the Constitutional Court ruled that he had grossly