Vladas Stašinskas

Vladas Stašinskas was a Lithuanian by nationality and a Catholic by faith. He was born on October 10, 1874.[2][3]

After graduating from Mitau Gymnasium in 1895, he entered the law faculty of Moscow University and graduated with a first-class diploma in 1902. He served as an assistant to a sworn attorney in Kovno (1902–1906). At the time of the Duma elections, he remained non-partisan, but politically, he was close to the social democrats.

On February 6, 1907, he was elected to the State Duma of the 2nd convocation from the general composition of electors of the Kovno gubernatorial electoral assembly. He joined the Social Democratic faction. He was a member of the Duma committees on the execution of the state budget, the development of the "Nakaz" on the transformation of the local court. He served as the secretary of the commission on local government and self-government. He participated in debates on the election of the Agrarian Commission, on the criminal responsibility of L.F. Gerus, A.F. Kuznetsov, A.S. Kupstas, on the responsibility for praising criminal acts, on the cancellation of penalties for secret education in the Kingdom of Poland and the Western Krai.[1]

Deputies of the State Duma of the II convocation, Lithuanians, 1907.

From November 11 to December 26, 1918, he served as Minister of Internal Affairs in the first government of Lithuania. From December 1918 to April 1919, he was the state controller. On January 22, 1919, the Bolsheviks arrested Stašinskas in Vilnius, and he remained in custody in Vilnius, Daugavpils, and the Smolensk prison until the end of July, after which he was released as part of the exchange of political prisoners.

From June 1930 to September 1938, he headed the Bank of Lithuania (Lietuvos Bankas), and then for two months (October 1 – December 5, 1938), he served as Minister of Justice. In 1931, he served as a special judge in one case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Stašinskas headed the Association of Lawyers of Lithuania (Lietuvos advokātu taryba) as its chairman.

Due to his health condition, on March 1, 1939, he retired. He died on March 11, 1944, in Kėdainiai (Lithuania).