Remigijus Šimašius


Remigijus Šimašius is a Lithuanian lawyer and politician, member of Seimas, Minister of Justice, Mayor of Vilnius since 2015.

Education

In 1997 Šimašius graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Vilnius University, with a degree in law.
In 2002 attained a PhD, after defending his doctoral dissertation on Legal pluralism at the Lithuanian University of Law.
From 2006 to 2008 he was the President of the Lithuanian Free Market Institute. From 9 December 2008 to 13 December 2012 he was the Minister of Justice of the 15th Government headed by Andrius Kubilius.

Chairman of Liberal movement

Background

In May 2016, in the midst of a Liberal Movement bribery scandal, Eligijus Masiulis resigned as chairman and Antanas Guoga took over as the interim chairman. Guoga immediately suggested that bribery is widespread within the party and the party needs to become more transparent, which resulted in an initiative to remove Guoga. Guoga resigned two days after becoming interim chairman.

Election and resignation

In June 2016, Remigijus Šimašius was elected chairman.
Since Šimašius took over, around 20 members left the party. Other members broke off Liberal movement and created 2 new political parties. In October 2017, Mr Šimašius left as chairman after 16 months on the job.

Mayor of Vilnius

As mayor of Vilnius, Šimašius renamed a street that had been named after Kazys Skirpa and removed a memorial to Jonas Noreika. He said, "It’s clear that their participation in the Holocaust was not an accident. It’s not about plaques or street names, but about principles." Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda subsequently proposed a law that would require municipalities to follow rules from the national government "when installing, removing or changing commemorative plaques" but later tabled the proposed law.