International law in national constitutional paradigm: is there any threat to the supremacy of the Constitution?

This article deals with the changing role of international law within the constitutional paradigm in Lithuania. Traditionally, according to this paradigm, international law has been treated as inferior field of law with regard to the Constitution and therefore has not been recognised as a source of the interpretation of the Constitution. However, as it is demonstrated in this Article, the case law of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania (official constitutional doctrine) of the last decade leads us to the conclusion that the constitutional paradigm has been changed so as international law can be treated as one of the sources of the interpretation of the Constitution. This is due to the disclosure by the Constitutional Court of the relevant constitutional principles, such as pacta sunt servanda, the rule of law, open civic society and the Western geopolitical orientation. They can be found in the Constitution by means of interpretation taking into account all the potential of the constitutional provisions declaring about the commitments to international human rights standards, universally recognised norms of international law and the rule of law in general. The four above mentioned constitutional principles are able to transform the initial isolative approach towards international law into a friendly one. Moreover, they inevitably extend the national constitutional paradigm by obliging to employ international law as the source of the interpretation of the Constitution and the progressive development of the official constitutional doctrine. The Constitution (its interpretation) cannot be developed in a way opposite to the development of international law. Certainly, the Constitutional Courts has a decisive role in such a transformation of the national constitutional paradigm into friendly, inclusive and harmonious with international and the EU law. It should be underlined that international law has to be treated as a source for the interpretation of the Constitution due to the above mentioned constitutional principles and to the extent allowed by the Constitution itself. Therefore, reliance on international law in the interpretation of the relevant constitutional provisions, which follows from the Constitution itself, does not pose any threat to the supremacy of the Constitution; on the contrary, it confirms this supremacy as well as a friendly constitutional approach to international law. The Article reveals the key elements of this changing constitutional paradigm: the presumption of compatibility of international law with the Constitution, the concept of international law as a minimum constitutional standard, etc