Powers of trial court to re-qualify incriminated act: prerequisites for reinterpretation of the Constitution

The article further explores prerequisites for reinterpretation of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania on question of powers of court to re-qualify sua sponte act described in an indictment, departing from the ruling of the Constitutional Court adopted on 1999 February 5. 2003 year amendments of Article 84 and Article 118 of Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania significantly increased the Prosecutor‘s Office (prosecutors) independence. This is ground for changing interpretation of the relationship between powers of prosecutors and judicial powers. These amendments, together with other constitutional values form the basis for asserting that the current Criminal Procedure Code stipulating powers of the trial court to re-qualify incriminated act sua sponte under more severe criminal law is consistent with the prosecutor‘s constitutional powers to upheld charges on behalf of the State. The constitutionality of the powers of the court is justified also because the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Lithuania now provides for clear implementation procedures of such powers to ensure the rights of the accused to know the accusation, the right to defense and fair trial. The expansion of the latter constitutional rights of the accused might be ground for the reinterpretation, which taking into account the European Court of Human Rights jurisprudence would stipulate that participants of trial should be heard before the court changes legal qualification of incriminated act under more lenient or similar criminal law if such law contains new legal element (enshrined in the special part of the Criminal Code) for the act to constitute a crime. Reinterpretation of the Constitution, relevant amendments of the Criminal Procedure Code or new interpretation of the Code, grounded on principles of adversarial trial, justice and the rule of law, should ensure the prosecutor’s and the victim‘s right to be heard before the trial court changes qualification of incriminated act under another criminal law containing only additional legal element showing the crime to be more lenient one. The aforementioned conclusions of the article are drawn from comparative systematic analysis of juriprudence of the Constitutional Court, Lithuanian and foreign constitutional and criminal procedure legislation, legal doctrine