10 March 2011, press release
On 10
March, the 2008-2012 Seimas convened for the sixth ordinary (spring) session. After
expressing her congratulations to the colleagues on the spring session, Mrs
Irena Degutienė, Speaker of the Seimas, read out the letter from Ms Dalia Grybauskaitė, President of the Republic of Lithuania, congratulating
the Seimas with the opening of the session.
The parliamentarians observed a minutes silence in memory of the poet Justinas Marcinkevičius who would
have turned 81 on 10 March.
Mrs Irena Degutienė addressed the Seimas with the following speech.
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to meet and welcome you on the opening
of the sixth session of this Seimas. I am well aware that we are still excited
about the recent municipal elections, particularly when we hear that a number
of parliamentarians are even considering leaving the Seimas to lead the local government.
On the other hand, we will shortly be able to welcome
a new colleague Mr Albinas Mitrulevičius
who has won in Marijampolė constituency.
Regrettably, previous elections have not brought
an end to the political fight which, from now on, moves here, into the Seimas, where
the interpellation to the energy minister is to be filed today.
Therefore, on this occasion I would like to
wish us all that this session would remain in the memory of our electorate and
parliamentary history not only as a period of the political fight, but also as
a period of constructive work dedicated to the adoption or improvement of
relevant legislation apart from interpellations, resignations and attempts to bring
about power shifts.
Dear colleagues,
There is a lot of work ahead of us with the unfinished
tasks to be continued and the new ones to be taken on. I will enlarge on this
aspect later on at the introduction of the work programme.
Calling to mind a well-known Latin proverb that
Repetitio est
mater studiorum, I would also like to repeat
again what I have told you more than once: among all the never-ending work we
should keep in mind two strategic aspects of our activity: quality of the laws
adopted and parliamentary scrutiny.
I am happy to see that committees increasingly
focus on parliamentary scrutiny and make specific plans for the future. I am
satisfied that the Seimas web page allows each resident to become familiar with
the activities of the committees in the area of parliamentary scrutiny. We must
admit, however, that there is still room for us to progress. Many of you, like
I, must have heard our electorate expressing their disappointment over the laws
that are not observed.
Accordingly, I would like to remind again that
our constitutional obligation is not only to adopt legislation, but also to
ensure their proper functioning as well as to ensure effective performance of
the duties assigned to civil servants and institutions, which are authorised by
and accountable to the Seimas.
Let me note that as far back as the beginning
of the autumn session I asked the Government that drafters should assume
personal responsibility for the quality of the draft legal act submitted by the
Government and, consequently, indicate their surnames, titles and contact
details at the bottom of the draft legal act. Unfortunately, this tradition was
not established properly in the last session. Therefore I want to highlight
that personal responsibility for the quality of the draft legal act will be implemented
in practice only if we all are uncompromising in this respect, particularly at
the level of committees and commissions.
I also want to draw to your attention that all
draft legal acts governing certain relations within society should be subject
to an anti-corruption assessment, as defined by the Law on Prevention of
Corruption.
Dear colleagues,
Surely, we all enjoy spring, longer and warmer
days, thus I wish all of us more optimism and hope in our work and activities.
I wish responsibility, wisdom and patience. In addition, I wish that this
session would also preserve a fine tradition to cope with all the items on the
session agenda on time. This also depends on our joint efforts and goodwill.
Public Relations Unit
