With the Law on Responsibility for the Genocide of Residents of Lithuania which came into effect on 9 April 1992 and the legislator of the Republic of Lithuania having determined that no time limitations shall applied to the criminal liability for very grave crimes against humanity for the first time, the Prosecutor’s Office became the sole procedural institution in Lithuania having the right to conduct preliminary interrogation in the criminal cases of genocide that was committed in Lithuania during the Soviet and Nazi occupation.

On 1 May 2003 a new version of the Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure of the Republic of Lithuania came into effect; since that date the Prosecutor’s Office directs pre-trial investigations into all crimes including crimes of the above-mentioned category. Moreover, prosecutors have procedural right to conduct and in fact conduct pre-trial investigations into the crimes in question.

The main function of conducting pre-trial investigation into crimes against humanity including genocide, war crimes, as well as criminal offences against equal rights and freedom of conscience (discrimination, incitement against a person on the basis of his sex, sexual orientation, race, nationality, language, origin, social status, believes, convictions or any other dependability specified in the law; making hindrances to perform religious ceremony or celebration) and control and coordination thereof and methodical direction is performed by Special Investigations Division of Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Lithuania. This Division was established as a separate structural division of Prosecutor General’s Office on the basis of 23 October 1991 Resolution of Presidium of Reconstituted Parliament, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania.