Press release, 18 December 2019
From 1 February 2020, meetings of the Board of the Seimas and the Conference of Chairs will be broadcast live and video recordings of the meetings will be made public. The exceptions as regards broadcasting will be made to closed meetings of the Board of the Seimas or its meetings organised by way of inquiry. The draft amendments to the Statute of the Seimas (draft No XIIP-4125(2)) related thereto were approved by 77 votes in favour, 5 against and 28 abstentions.
Pursuant to the adopted amendments, the website of the Seimas will also post agendas of meetings of the Board of the Seimas and the Conference of Chairs.
The authors of the amendments state that public broadcasts of meetings of the Board of the Seimas and the Conference of Chairs and publication of video recordings and agendas are expected to facilitate access to the information about the activities of the Seimas, ensure greater openness of the Seimas to the public, and create more favourable conditions for media coverage of the parliamentary developments.
‘Currently, the agendas of meetings of the Board of the Seimas and the Conference of Chairs are not public, the meetings are not broadcast and their recordings, if any, are not available to the public as well. Therefore, the public and the media receive just fragmented and limited information on the activities of the above-mentioned bodies of the Seimas,’ the explanatory note to the draft Law reads.
The Seimas also decided to incorporate the provisions on the website broadcasts of meetings of the Seimas committees in its Statute. Only closed meetings will not be aired on the Seimas website.
The broadcasts of meetings of the Seimas committees and commissions, with the exception of the Commission for Ethics and Procedures and the Petitions Commission, started in October 2018. The broadcasting procedure was established by the decision of the Board of the Seimas.
Currently, all people interested in parliamentary activities can watch live broadcasts of sittings of the Seimas, meetings of the Seimas committees and commissions, press conferences, and various events taking place in the Seimas.