Protection public interest

PROTECTION OF THE PUBLIC INTEREST

Upon establishing possible violation of the rights and lawful interests of a person, society or the State, the prosecutors protect the public interest upon the notification, proposal, application or complaint filed by the person, state or municipal institution or agency, or on their own initiative as well as in cases when the officers, employees of other institutions or persons having equivalent status, who are under the obligation to protect the said interest, failed to take any measures to rectify the violation. Prosecutors must actively defend possibly violated rights and lawful interests of the state, society and persons and, in some cases, of individual natural persons especially children, incapable or limitedly capable persons. This function of Prosecutor’s Office is established in the Constitution and other laws.

In accordance with the civil procedure, the prosecutor applies to the court when he establishes the breach of legislative act the nature of which, in prosecutor’s opinion, is significant to the rights and lawful interests of the persons, groups thereof, the state and society and provides reasonable assumptions for satisfaction of prosecutor’s material lawful demand.

It should be noted that having granted prosecutors the right to initiate civil and administrative proceedings when this is required by the public interest, the legislator failed to define the notion of public interest. In other words, the legislator has a wide understanding of what the public interest is and grants the prosecutor the right to decide himself whether something is contrary to the public interest in particular case and whether the proceedings to defend such interest should be initiated or not. However, the final decision whether the public interest is breached or not is made by the court examining the prosecutor’s claim, application or petition.

Defence of violated rights and lawful interests of the state and persons has always been one of the functions of the Prosecutor’s Office; depending on the legal regulations of particular periods of time, this function had different scope, and prosecutor’s authority was changing. By 12 October 1998 Prosecutor General’s Order, Division of Civil Cases and Preparation of Legislative Acts of Prosecutor General’s Office was reorganized into two structural divisions. Division of Civil Cases was one of the two new divisions, having six prosecutors (Chief Prosecutor, his Deputy and four prosecutors). The name of the Division has not changed since that time.
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The public interest is defended by prosecutors working in the Civil Cases Divisions of Prosecutor General’s Office, regional and district prosecutor’s offices of Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Panevėžys and Šiauliai as well as other prosecutors specializing in this particular field and working in prosecutor’s offices of other towns and districts.

Prosecutors of Civil Cases Division of Prosecutor General’s Office:

examine central state institutions’ reports about possibly breached public interest and persons’ requests regarding the resumption of procedure in the civil and administrative proceedings; audit the legitimacy of decisions on refusing to defend the public interest made by regional prosecutors;
form unified practice of defending public interest; provide methodical and practical assistance to the prosecutors of territorial prosecutor’s offices.

Prosecutors of Civil Cases Divisions of regional prosecutor’s offices:

examine complaints about possibly breached public interest (which are not covered by the competence of district prosecutor’s offices, e.g. revocation of administrative acts, acknowledging deals as being invalid) or applications regarding the resumption of procedure in the administrative proceedings submitted by persons, the state or municipal institutions; audit the legitimacy of decisions on refusing to defend the public interest made by district prosecutors;
provide methodical and practical assistance to district prosecutors.

Prosecutors of district prosecutor’s offices:

examine requests for defending public interest which manifests in personal interests of the persons whose possibilities to apply to the court on their own efforts are limited due to objective reasons (e.g. acknowledging the person to be legally incapable, restriction of parents’ authority, determination of custody and care, and in some cases acknowledging the marriage to be invalid or termination of marriage etc.);
address the court with the claim on acknowledging the established legal person to be unlawful, or on investigation of legal person’s activities;
address the court with the claim about the recovery of damage caused by criminal activities, provided that such a claim is not submitted in accordance with criminal procedure or was not examined by the court;
examine persons’ complaints and petitions regarding the ejection of natural persons from residential premises, authorize ejection of such entities or make decision on refusing to grant such authorization.

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