Five academics of the Law Faculty of Vilnius University presented papers at the international conference organised by the Faculty of Law of the University of Latvia in Riga on 9-10 November. This year’s conference, which takes place every two years, was dedicated to “Revisiting the Limits of Freedom While Living under Threat”.
More than fifty speakers – academics from Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and Germany – addressed topics in various branches of law. The section on law as a guarantor of liberty and its limits brought together topics in legal theory, legal history and legal philosophy; the section on the relationship between the individual, society and the state in modern law featured presentations on constitutional, criminal and other branches of law. Other sessions were devoted to the concept of freedom and its limits in European Union law and private international law, the concept of freedom and its limits in the protection of human rights and public international law, direct action and its limits in modern insurance law, private law and the limits of its content, and the role of the Central and Eastern European countries in the development of a common European constitutional heritage.
Vice-Dean for studies of VU Faculty of Law assoc. prof. dr Vigita Vėbraitė, spoke about the application of sanctions against Russia and Belarus in Lithuanian courts and the difficulties faced by courts. The most relevant civil and administrative cases were presented, and the importance of bilateral international treaties on legal aid was discussed.
Prof. Dr Ramūnas Birštonas presented a paper on the current legal issue of how freely various entities, including entrepreneurs, universities and other research organisations, can use publicly available data to train artificial intelligence systems, the limits of these possibilities and the practical problems that have emerged.
Assoc. Prof. Dr Indrė Isokaitė-Valužė examined the limits of freedom of expression in wartime and the search for criteria for permissible opinions on armed conflicts, aggression, terrorism, international crimes, combining freedom and order – the individual’s freedom of expression and the state’s duty to ensure public order, state and public security, to prevent hate speech and the promotion of aggressive war.
Assist. Dr Johanas Baltrimas presented a paper on the legal regulation of referendums in Lithuania. The presentation covered the problematic aspects of verifying the constitutionality of referendum initiatives in relation to the concept of the sovereignty of the people and the powers of the Constitutional Court and the Ordinary Courts to interpret the Constitution.
Dr. Tomas Kontautas’ presentation focused on the right of direct claim in Lithuania. Lithuania is one of the few countries in Europe which gives the right in all civil liability insurance contracts to the injured party to apply to the insurer of the wrongdoer for insurance benefits and to bring an appropriate action against the insurer in court. The presentation also addressed the issue of the procedural status of the insurer, arguing that the insurer and the tortfeasor should be co-defendants, thus resolving the issue of full compensation in a single civil case.
