ANALYSIS OF LITHUANIAN REGIONAL DEMOCRACY ACCORDING TO THE ARTICLES OF EUROPEAN CHARTER OF LOCAL SELF-GOVERNMENT

The poorly addressed problem of motivation of self‐government democracy may hinder direct involvement of inhabitants in the process of public affairs management and decision‐making on social, political, cultural, economic and other issues of selfgovernment. The right of citizens to participate in public affairs is defined in the preamble to the Charter as one of the fundamental principles of democracy. Moreover, Lithuania has ratified the European Charter of Local Self‐Government (1999), while committing itself to implement its provisions in the national legal system. As with all Council of Europe multilateral treaties, there is a certain monitoring system for the proper implementation of the Charter of Local Self‐Government, which is one of the institutional tools for enforcement is Group of independent experts. Therefore, the research aims to determine the level of expression of the principles enshrined in the European Charter of Local SelfGovernment in Lithuanian national law; to reveal the influence of the principles enshrined in the European Charter of Local SelfGovernment on the democratic processes in Lithuanian selfgovernment; to put forward solutions for the Lithuanian legislator on issues identified related to questions analysed in order to improve national legal regulation. The research will use theoretical, historical, empirical, comparative and analytical methods.