The parliament passed a special law on the legal status of the president of the Supreme Council, the post held by Vytautas Landsbergis at the time, in a vote of 74 to one with four abstentions.
According to the law, the president of the Supreme Council, as the highest official of the Republic of Lithuania, had and exercised the constitutional powers of the head of state between March 11, 1990 and November 25, 1992.
The ruling bloc maintained that the draft law simply stated a historical fact, but the opposition said that aim was to rewrite history.
An attempt to grant Landsbergis the status of the head of state failed during the previous parliamentary term as the initiative of Viktoras Pranckietis, the then speaker of the Seimas, failed to receive political backing from the then ruling coalition.