The Statutes of Lithuania, originally known as the Statutes of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, were a 16th-century codification of all the legislation of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and its successor, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Statutes consist of three legal codes (1529, 1566, and 1588), all written in Ruthenian, translated into Latin and later Polish. They formed the basis of the legal system of the Grand Duchy and were "the first full code of laws written in Europe since Roman Law" and "a major milestone inasmuch as it is the first attempt to codify significant East European legal trends". The Statutes evolved hand-in-hand with the Lithuanian expansion into Slavic lands, thus the main sources of the statutes were Ruthenian Laws, Baltic tribes had neither written culture nor systematic laws, while the Ruthenians published codified collections of law 5 centuries before the first statute of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Old Slavic customary law, as well as the nobility privileges in Poland, Magdeburg Rights, international treaties and royal charters and proclamations of the 12th to 14th centuries.
On 28 January 1588, Sigismund III Vasa had confirmed the Third Statute of Lithuania which stated that the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth is a federation of two countries – Poland and Lithuania where both countries have equal rights within it and separated the powers of the ruler, the Seimas, the executive and the courts (this for the first time in European history ensured the rule of law in the state, but Lithuania's citizens, who were subjects to the Statute, were only nobles). The Third Statute of Lithuania outlived the statehood of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which in 1795 was annexed by the Russian Empire after the Partitions of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; it was abolished by the Russian tsarist authorities only on 7 July 1840.
The First Statute was drafted in 1522 and came into force in 1529 by the initiative of the Lithuanian Council of Lords. It has been proposed that the codification was initiated by Grand Chancellor of Lithuania Mikołaj Radziwiłł as a reworking and expansion of the Casimir Code. The First Statute consisted of 13 Chapters and was divided into 282 Articles.
Third Statute
thumb|upright|The Third Statute, 1588
thumb|upright|Polish translation of the Third Statute
The Third Statute, described as an "outstanding monument of the legal, literary and linguistic culture", was accepted in 1588 in response to the Union of Lublin, which created the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The main author and editor of this statute was the great Chancellor of Lithuania Lew Sapieha of Ruthenian origin. The statute was the first one to be printed (in contrast to the handwritten statutes before) in the Ruthenian language using the Cyrillic alphabet. Until then, many Russian peasants and even nobles (e.g., Andrey Kurbsky) were fleeing from despotism in the neighboring Tsardom of Russia to Lithuania.
The Third Statute consisted of 14 chapters: confirmed in the coronation sejm of September 1697 in the document Porządek sądzenia spraw w Trybunale Wielkiego Księstwa Litewskego. These reforms limited the jurisdiction and competency of several Lithuanian offices, such as those of the hetman, kanclerz (chancellor), marszałek (marshal) and podskarbi (under-treasurer), to equate them with those of the corresponding offices in the Polish crown. Many of these offices at the time were held by members of the Sapieha family, and the changes were at least partly made with a view to reducing their power. The reforms also instituted Polish as the administrative language, replacing Ruthenian, in written documents and court proceedings, contradicting the wording of the Third Statute.
The Statutes of Grand Duchy Lithuania were a sign of the progressive European legal tradition, and were cited as precedent in Polish and Livonian courts. Furthermore, they had a major influence on the 1649 encoding of the Russian legal code, Sobornoye Ulozheniye. After forming an association with Poland—including both the dynastic union (1385–1569) and the confederated Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569–1795)—the Lithuanian Statutes were the Grand Duchy's greatest expression of independence.
In 1791, efforts were made to change the system and do away with the privileges of the nobility, creating a constitutional monarchy with a modern citizenry (see Constitution of 3 May). However, these plans came to naught when Russia, abetted by Austria and Prussia, partitioned the Commonwealth. On 30 October 1794, Russian empress Catherine the Great reversed all changes of the law approved by the Great Sejm, and mandated use of the Lithuanian Statutes as the applicable law for the conquered Western Krai of Russia. To facilitate the application of the decree translation of the document into Russian was started and took up to 1798. However, the print of this version of the document was swiftly forbidden as the 200-year-old document was seen as more liberal than the contemporary Imperial law.