Members of five municipal councils took the oath according to the wrong text: the ceremony will have to be repeated

The Central Election Commission (CEC) confirmed that they have data that municipal politicians of Kazlų Rūda, Palanga, Mažeikiai, Plungė and Trakai districts took the oath using a text that does not correspond to the current version of the Law on Local Self-Government.

As the law provides, members of newly elected municipal councils and mayors must take the oath by reading the following text:

“I, (name, surname), swear to respect and enforce the Constitution and laws, to perform my duties honestly and honorably and to refrain from actions that violate the rights and public interests of the residents of the municipality. May God help me!”. Only the last sentence can be selected – it is not mandatory.

However, politicians who received mandates in the mentioned municipalities did not take oaths according to this text. The State Management and Municipalities Committee of the Seimas began to clarify the curious situation. He appealed to the Central Election Commission to explain how this could have happened.

“If an oath is not taken according to the prescribed text, a person cannot be considered to have taken the oath and obtained the authority,” the committee’s statement issued on Friday read.

“After receiving alarming signals that in some municipalities councilors and mayors swore not according to the text of the oath prescribed by law and therefore cannot be considered properly sworn, we immediately appealed to the Supreme Electoral Commission to provide the committee with data on how many such municipalities there are in the near future, yes would also explain how this could happen, what will be done so that the situations are resolved immediately and do not happen again in the future. We are clarifying who is responsible for such a difficult situation, because some of the new councils could have already passed legal acts, so the question is who will take responsibility for the consequences caused by the decisions made by entities without authority. Such negligence is absolutely intolerable,” the chairman of the committee assessed the situation Richard Juška.

CEC: Politicians sworn in illegally will have to repeat the ceremony

This situation was commented on by Andrius Puksas, acting as the chairman of the CEC.

According to him, according to the CEC’s knowledge, the newly elected members of the municipal councils of Kazlų Rūda, Palanga, Mažeikiai, Plungė and Trakai districts took the oath according to the text that does not correspond to the correct wording. And for them, the CEC member said, the swearing-in ceremony will have to be repeated.

“We would like to emphasize that on March 13 of this year, the Supreme Election Commission sent written recommendations to all municipal election commission chairmen, and they, in turn, to all Lithuanian municipal administrations regarding the first meeting of the municipal council,” said A. Puksas in a written comment.

In addition, he explained, the sent recommendations also specified how the oath ceremony of newly elected municipal council members and mayors should take place and provided the text of the oath of the elected municipal council member and mayor stipulated in the Law on Local Self-Government.

“The Law on Local Self-Government states that the established text of the oath cannot be amended or changed. Failure to comply with this provision, as well as refusal to sign the personal oath sheet or signing with a reservation, means that the member of the municipal council or the mayor did not take the oath”, explained A. Puksas.

According to him, the Supreme Electoral Commission, having learned about the fact of taking an improper oath, immediately informed the municipal administrations that the swearing-in ceremony of municipal council members and mayors who did not take the oath according to the law must be reorganized as soon as possible.

“It was emphasized that until the oaths are taken in accordance with the procedure provided for in the Law on Local Self-Government, neither the municipal council nor the mayor can start their duties,” said A. Puksas, who is temporarily acting as the chairman of the CEC.

Also, he continued, in order to avoid similar incidents, those municipalities where the swearing-in ceremonies have not yet taken place were also informed.