Valstybės imunitetas civiliniame procese ; State immunity in civil procedure

Abstract

The majority of the countries applied the doctrine of absolute state immunity till the second half of the XX-th century, however, as the world trade has changed, a new doctrine of a restricted immunity has become relevant. The latter imposes that the state participates on equal basis with other persons and does not use its immunity in private legal relations. To be true, this overturn has not happened suddenly, but as a result of court practise in the separate countries. As a result of that, the European Convention on State Immunity was signed in Basel in 1972, and the United Nations codified appropriate countries and their property, and immunities in the Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property in 2004. It's a pity, but the latter has not been in effect yet, so a state immunity has not exceeded the international custom institute. The Civil Procedure Code of the Republic of Lithuania 1964 established the absolute state immunity doctrine, as well. This norm is the Soviet Lithuania's heritage that has not met the changing social relations, political and economic structure of independent Lithuania. So the Supreme Court of the Republic of Lithuania in its 1998 year case V. Stukonis vs. USA Embassy established a restricted immunity doctrine. As there is no official common list of the exceptions from the state immunity, the particular exceptions are important. That is why the Thesis analyzes not only the commercial, but also exceptions in the labor law and delicts. The national courts, including Lithuanian ones, lack developing court practise, reflected by detailed legal reasoning in applying the exceptions from the state immunity. The rare examples, as the UK and the US, have passed the national legal acts, regulating the state immunity thus repeatedly proving the inconsecutive process of the state immunity regulation.