From the history of Lithuanian courts: the Court of Appeal (1933-1944)

A temporary law of Courts of Lithuania and their work order promulgated in 1918 determined the three level court system with no cassation, where the decisions of the appeal as the higher court level were considered as final. Subsequently, in 1921, the partial cassation was instituted that concerned the cases solved by the Justices of the Peace and processed at the stage of appeal by district courts. Afterwards, it took almost the decade to prepare the bill supplementing the court system Jurisprudencija. 2014, 21(1): 25–43. 43 with the special court of cassation and revision. The law was adopted and came into force in 1933. The Chief Tribunal from the highest level of court system was reorganized into the Court of Cassation. The court system was also supplemented by the new Republic-wide court of appeal called the Court of Appeal. The aforementioned court was proclaimed as the first instance court assigned to deal with slender criminal cases concerning criminal behavior directed to security of the State, however, the main field of its duty became investigation of cases at the stage of appeal that were tried by the first instance courts. After submitting by law all the civil cases to district courts, at the stage of appeal the cases had to be investigated in higher level district courts. Yet the Court of Appeal became an appeal instance for civil cases that according to the previous procedure were tried in the first instance by the higher level district courts. The unfinished aforementioned cases were left to be dealt with by the Court of Appeal. Right after the occupation of the Soviet Union, the Court of Appeal together with other courts of the year of independence were abolished and by the new-formed temporary Government were reconstituted right after the German occupation. After the legislative and executive power was taken over by the recent occupants, the Lithuanian judiciary did not turn into the institution executing the occupation justice. According to the interest of invaders in the territory of Lithuania, the separate German judiciary system was formed and functioned in parallel with the Lithuanian judiciary system