Statutes of Lithuania

[6] Although general land privileges (obshchezemskie privilei) of 1447, 1492 and 1506 provided certain legal norms, as a rule they did not cover more specific types of problems such as procedure, punishment and other finer points of law.

It has been proposed that the codification was initiated by Grand Chancellor of Lithuania Mikołaj Radziwiłł as a reworking and expansion of the Casimir Code.

The second statute came into effect in 1566 by the order of the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, Sigismund II Augustus, and was larger and more advanced.

The Grand Duke did this because of pressure from the Lithuanian nobility, as the expansion of nobles' rights since the publication of the first statute had made it redundant.

The second statute was prepared by a special commission, consisting of ten members, appointed by the Grand Duke and the Council of Lords.

[12][13] The Third Statute, described as an "outstanding monument of the legal, literary and linguistic culture",[14] was accepted in 1588 in response to the Union of Lublin, which created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The statute also provided that crimes committed by or against people from different social ranks were punished alike, following the idea of equal worth of human life.

As a token for being acknowledged as Grand Duke of Lithuania, Sigismund III Vasa revised the Union of Lublin and approved the Third Lithuanian Statute.

[citation needed] The third variant of the Statute had particularly many humane features, such as a prohibition to enslave a free man for any crime; freedom of religion; and a recommendation to acquit the accused when there is a lack of evidence, instead of punishing the innocent.

The reforms also instituted Polish as the administrative language, replacing Ruthenian, in written documents and court proceedings, contradicting the wording of the Third Statute.

[20][21] The Statutes of Lithuania were a sign of the progressive European legal tradition, and were cited as precedent in Polish and Livonian courts.

After forming an association with Poland—including both the dynastic union (1385–1569) and the confederated Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795)—the Lithuanian Statutes were the Grand Duchy's greatest expression of independence.