The Lithuania Tribune began publishing commentaries written by the Lithuanian commentators.

Although it’s still not clear what will be the end of the story, which started in Kaunas last Monday (5 October) by two murders, however, it’s already possible to say that the suspect Drąsius Kedys can become a national legend. Maybe he’s already a legend. After less than 48 hours have passed after the murders, in a social network “Facebook” it was already more than 500 admirers of Drasius Kedys.

This number was quite much bigger than the number of the respecters of the present member of the European Parliament Leonidas Donskis, who for several months was successfully canvassing for votes in the Internet space. The page of Drasius Kedys is decorated by the colours of Lithuanian flag (yellow, green and red), on it as on a background one can see a rigorous face and a lettering “My Justice”. The number of Drasius Kedys’ admirers is increasing so quickly that one question arises naturally: who right now, when you are reading this commentary, has more followers – Drasius Kedys or the most popular politician of our country. The “Facebook” club of the President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė has above 5000 admirers.

It would be possible to state that all the countries of the world have their own levellers. The nations need them especially in hard times, when the belief in justice and government is faltering. Thus the unexpected rise of Drasius Kedys’ popularity should be seen as a very serious warning to all our authorities. It is a reminder for the legislators and the implementers of the law, that are currently cutting salaries and pensions, about how important it is to cherish the solidarity feeling as well as to have in mind that the patience of ordinary people is limited and that overstepping these limits sometimes can cause very painful outcomes.

However, first of all, this tragedy that happened in Kaunas, harshly hit our whole law and order. And this can be said not only because of the fact that it was a judge who was murdered during this tragedy. It is totally unclear if there’s any system of self-control operating in Lithuania. The independence of a judge is ensured by the legal immunity, provided to him. It should not be seen as a privilege, it is judge’s duty that is hard to fulfil, as a accusation, that is addressed to a single judge, becomes an accusation to all the judges, as long as this accusation is not disproved.

A vital instinct of the judiciary should be an aim to clear their files from those who compromised themselves and not an aim to protect the honour of judge’s mantle at any price. The judge, who was killed in Kaunas, became a victim not only of that person, who shot at him. How today should feel those who neither confirmed nor persuasively confuted the accusations?

However it would be, the Kaunas tragedy most severely hit the so-called “fourth government”. Unexpectedly came to light a fact that the instinct of chasing sensations that overtook our media for quite long time ago, has nothing to do with humanity. In the screen the justice has to be implemented immediately and within touch. Since Monday we can observe that the difference between a criminal serial and newscast has already almost vanished.

It becomes more and more clearly visible that our media that is trying on the mantle of an omniscient judge still lives in two-decades-old recollection about a glory of its own. At that time almost 70 percent of the inhabitants of Lithuania had trust in press which indeed often used to play a role of “the last instance”, to become almost the only one place, where the miserable could expect to get justice.

During the two last decades the trust in media in Lithuania was decreasing bit by bit, two times it dropped by approximately one fifth – during the presidential impeachment and after the scandal of State Security Department that arose after the death of Col. Vytautas Pociūnas (The Lithuanian State Security Department officer who died in mysterious circumstances in Gardin, Belarus – LTribune) . Even though the trust in media rose after both of these crises, however, it did not return to the original heights.

Could it happen that the futile Drasius Kedys’ appeals to the media, his belief that the media will hear out him, will become an evidence to the majority, that the press, radio and TV, that is permanently explosively demonstrating its independence, already disgorged to the hated layer of government?

At the end I would like to recall one more sad story. When two years ago two small boys disappeared in the district of Kelmė, the media immediately labelled their mother Alma Jonaitienė as a holly martyr (It was discovered soon that Jonaitienė murdered her two sons – LTribune). As long as the search proceeded, the rivers of tears were pouring out of TV screens, and the newspapers’ pages were overloaded by the details of the public confession. And after the truth was revealed, the media revenged fiercely.

It is hard to get rid of an impression that the journalists were revenging to A.Jonaitienė for the vanity of their own. The woman was judged not only in the law court, but also in newspapers’ pages, in the screen. I am not going to defend the murderer; however, I can not avoid mentioning that the question, why the mother hauled her hand off her sons, remains unanswered.

As long as all the questions that arose during the tragedy of Kaunas, will not get honest answers, the team of the admirers of Drasius Kedys will increase inexorably and not only in Internet space.

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This commentary was presented on the Lithuanian Public radio and published on the Lithuanian Public Broadcaster’s Internet site on 8 October.  The commentary is published by courtesy of Mr Gintaras Aleknonis.

Gintaras Aleknonis, commentator and host of the Public Radio programmes, Dean and Lecture of the Mykolas Romeris University, former employee of the Radio Liberty.

The text translated by Milda Bagdonaitė