Name of Lecturer: Prof. dr. Saulius Arlauskas tfk@mruni.lt

State Under The Rule of Law in Lithuania
Name of Lecturer: Associated professor Ernestas Spruogis
Faculty: Law
Department, Contact Details: Department of Philosophy of Law and History
Language of instruction: English
Level of Course Unit: Bachelor
Year of Study (if applicable):
Required prerequisites: basic knowledge of legal theory
Learning Outcomes of the Course Unit 1 . A student will be able: to analyze legal
norms, its structure, to recognize the features of the rule of law.
ECTS credits: 6
Contact hours per week: 4
Semester: Autumn
Planned Learning Activities and Teching Methods: Lectures, individual work
Assessment methods and Criteria: Oral exam
Course content: (up to 10 sentences) Theoretical grounds of attributes of the state
under the rule of Law – open society, human rights, concept of the rule of Law,
general character of legal norms allowing to apply them for all the legal subjects
provided for, accessibility or publicity of legal norms ensuring that legal subjects will
be able to know the content of legal regulation; advance character of legal norms
meaning that they will be established before the necessity of their application; clarity
of legal norms, which are comprehensible to legal subjects; consistency of legal
norms, impermissibility to demand a certain behaviour at the same time prohibiting it;
ability of the addressees of legal norms to behave in accordance with the requirements
of norms, in other words, not demanding what is impossible; relative stability of legal
norms; “congruent” character of legal norms, i.e. conformity of the behaviour
demanded by norms with the behaviour demanded by law enforcement and other
institutions applying law, separation of powers, constitutional and administrative
control, the requirements for natural justice, like due process, public character of the
sittings of court, impartiality and independence of courts (not only with regard to
political power, but also to the pressure of public opinion), grounding of decisions on
evidence, will be analyzed within a scope of this discipline.
Reading list: (maximum 5 items)
1. Vaišvila A. The Concept of the State under the Rule of Law in Lithuania. Vilnius,
2000. (in Lithuanian).
2. Jarašiūnas E., Kūris E., Lapinskas K., Normantas A., Sinkevičius V., Stačiokas S.
Constitutional Justice in Lithuania. Vilnius, 2003.
3. Stačiokas S. The Role of the Constitutional Justice in Lithuania. / The Constitution
as an Instrument of Change. Edited by Eivind Smith, SNS Förlag, Stockholm, 2003,
p. 163-170.
4. Reinforcement of the Rule of Law; Final report on the First Part of the Project.
PHARE Horizontal Programme on Justice and Home Affairs. European Commission,
2002.
5. Alder J. Constitutional and administrative law. Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire and London. The Macmillan press Ltd., 1994
1 Knowledge, skills, competences that students can demonstrate/acquires during the course
4