Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis came under fire last spring for posting anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements on facebook. He was removed from his party and condemned by other political parties, but when he refused to apologize and continued to make similar posts, the ruling coalition sought to impeach and remove him as a member of parliament. The opposition were initially cool towards the idea, but warmed to it after Hamas attacked Israel two weeks ago. The ruling coalition and speaker of parliament filed a complaint with the prosecutor general alleging the MP was sowing ethnic discord against Jews in Lithuania. The prosecutor’s office is calling the MP a “special witness” because he enjoys parliamentary immunity from prosecution. Žemaitaitis says the impeachment commission was formed outside the bounds of parliamentary regulations and is unconstitutional. All sides agree the commission’s initial findings will have to be adjudicated by a court of law, most likely Lithuania’s Constitutional Court, before proceeding to the next stage in the process. This is the latest installment in the on-going saga.

Impeachment Commission No Longer Inviting Remigijus Žemaitaitis to Testify: MP Intentionally Avoiding Attending Meetings
by Gailė Jaruševičiūtė-Mockuvienė, Lrytas.lt, October 23

As Lithuanian MP Remigijus Žemaitaitis continues to fail to appear at meetings of a special interpellation commission, the commission resolved Monday not to send any more summons to the MP.

“We won’t undertake additional measures. We will simply send an access link to all meetings we hold in the future and will provide the member of parliament the chance to connect and explain his position,” commission chairman Arūnas Valinskas said during the commission meeting held Monday.

Valinskas said Remigijus Žemaitaitis’s refusal to present his own explanations could be interpreted as a conscious effort to discredit the commission’s actions, and might include using loop-holes in the parliamentary statute for that purpose.

“There isn’t any indication [in parliamentary rules] of what the commission should do if a member of parliament simply refuses to appear and be questioned, if he doesn’t present his opinions. And this is how even Remigijus Žemaitaitis’s preliminary defense is being developed, that the commission’s finding is a priori unfair because it doesn’t include a hearing of the [position by the] member of parliament,” the commission chairman said.

Other members of the commission agreed with the proposal not to seek Žemaitaitis’s any longer at meetings. Lithuanian Social Democrat Party parliamentary faction representative Dovilė Šakalienė pointed out is the right but not the duty of the person being investigated for impeachment to present their explanations.

This last meeting of the impeachment commission discussed Žemaitaitis’s newer statements following the Hamas attack. These new statements probably won’t find a place in the commission’s findings being prepared because they were made after the commission was formed, members of the commission said.

Full story in Lithuanian here.