The proposals are included in an opinion signed by the dean of the Faculty of Law, Tomas Davulis, and handed over to the Seimas Committee on Legal Affairs and members of the Seimas Constitutional Commission.
The amendment would specifically apply to Rolandas Paksas, leader of the ruling Order and Justice Party, who was impeached in 2004 as the president and subsequently barred from running for any public office. Paksas filed a suit at the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that a life-long ban was disproportionate a punishment. Lithuania was obligated to change its legislation accordingly, but is yet to do it.
The Faculty of Law also severely criticized the Constitutional amendment proposed by the committee's chairman Julius Sabatauskas, who suggested a four-year ban from election to parliament following impeachment.
The faculty's lawyers said the draft was "lacking in quality and transparency, therefore, should not be discussed."
"It ignores and confuses the consistency, harmony, and logic of the Constitution as an integral legal act. The draft is full of disrespect to the Constitution and law in general," reads the document.
The lawyers say that Sabatauskas' bill "attempts to deceive the Constitution to allow a violator of an oath of office to run for president." The Lithuanian Constitution states that a person who is elligible to run for parliament is also eligible to run for president.
The Vilnius University lawyers suggest amending the Constitution to include a provision that "an individual removed from office or stripped of his MP mandate by way of impeachment for gross violation of the Constitution or oath of office cannot be elected president, appointed as member of government, judge, or state ombudsperson."
The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the life-long ban from running for parliament for impeached president Rolandas Paksas was disproportional to the scope of the violation he committed.
To change the country's Constitution, 94 of Lithuania's 141 lawmakers must vote in support of the changes twice.
Paksas was ousted from the President's Office in April 2004 following impeachment for violating his oath of office and the Constitution when he granted the Lithuanian citizenship to his sponsor Yuri Borisov by exception.
