Civil Service and Civil Servants in Lithuania: Issues of Regulation and Status

This paper analyses two issues: first, the possibilities for corrections of Lithuanian civil service legal regulation, deliberating on a more flexible regulation perspective. It discusses whether the narrowing of civil service legal regulation could become a potential way to increase the efficiency of public administration with respect to the Lithuanian legal system. It also evaluates the possibilities of discretionary power use in the civil service. Another issue is the possibility of Lithuanian civil servants and public sector employees' statuses change, emphasizing existing problems and alternative considerations that may lead to the correction of the concept of servant in the future. The need for special civil servant status and responsibilities are discussed, as well as the possibilities to extend, narrow or eliminate the corps of civil servants. The paper is based on the data from qualitative research carried out in 2011 in the form of semi-structured interviews with more than fifty of the highest level Lithuanian civil servants, politicians responsible for civil service, and other experts-practitioners of the field.