Human Rights in Lithuania (original) (raw)
Related papers
2011
In 2011 the European Court of Human Rights delivered 10 judgments in cases against the Republic of Lithuania. In 9 judgments the Court found at least one violation of rights and freedoms guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 6 which provides the right to a fair trial, remains dominant in the applications against Lithuania, since in 7 out of 10 delivered judgments the Court declared violations of Article 6 (mostly paragraph 1 concerning the length of proceedings). In 2011 the Court as well declared violations of prohibition of torture, right to respect for private and family life and the right
Republic of Lithuania Materials on International Law 2020
Baltic yearbook of international law, 2022
Law 2020 (rlmil2020) are drafted and classified pursuant to Recommendation (97)11 of 12 June 1997 of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, as applied by the British Yearbook of International Law from the year 1997, with certain minor amendments. 2. For ease of reading a number of abbreviations are used in rlmil2020, namely echr-Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, 1950; ECtHR-European Court of Human Rights; Seimas-Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania; Government-Government of the Republic of Lithuania. Unless explicitly provided for otherwise, references to cases or decisions in rlmil2020 are references to acts of national courts and institutions. The case law of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania is available in English on its website <https:// www.lrkt.lt/ en/ >. Case law of the European Court of Human Rights is available through the website <http:// www.echr.coe.int/ echr/ >. Information on treaties of Lithuania are available at the following website: <https:// www.urm.lt/ defa ult/ en/ fore ign-pol icy/ treat ies/ bilate ral>. Universal and regional international instruments mentioned in rlmil2020 do not bear any reference to their source, as these may be easily accessed from various pages on the internet. Due to limited scope, rlmil2020 does not reproduce entire texts, so certain information is omitted and marked […]. 3. The rlmil2020 mostly concern opinions from Lithuanian institutions and officials. If not expressly stated otherwise, the institutions and officials mentioned in the rlmil2020 are those of Lithuania. Often, different officials expressed views on the same issues. In order to prevent undue repetition, the editor has selected materials from the highest possible level. Some materials are quoted at length due to their importance * Attorney-at-law, PhD student at Mykolas Romeris University (Vilnius); ll.m (Mykolas Romeris University). ** Professor at Mykolas Romeris University (Vilnius).
Republic of Lithuania Materials on International Law 2007
Baltic yearbook of international law, 2008
Andrius Bambalas and Saulius Katuoka (eds.) to be bound under national law, rather than meaning of international act, attributed to the notion 'ratifi cation' in the Article 2(1)(b) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, 1969.] Part One: II. International Law in general-History 1/1 The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania in the ruling No. 09/2008 on the Right of the Persons, Who Sustained Damage Due to Genocide, to Demand that the Natural Persons who Committed this Crime Compensate such Damage, dated 29 November 2010, reviewed the previous regulation that justifi es Lithuania's claims against Russian Federation as the state continuing the rights and obligations of the USSR to compensate damages of USSR's occupation. The relevant extracts are provided below: "The legal regulation of the relations of compensation for the damage infl icted upon the Republic of Lithuania and its residents by the USSR occupation began right after the restoration of the independence of the Republic of Lithuania. On 4 June 1991, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania adopted the Resolution "On Compensation for the Damage Infl icted upon the Republic of Lithuania and Its Residents by the USSR in 1940-1990" […]. On 30 June 1992, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania adopted the Resolution "On the Decision Adopted by Citizens of the Republic of Lithuania in the 14 June 1992 Referendum" […]. [T]he aforesaid legal acts indicated that the subject that had to compensate the Republic of Lithuania and its people for the damage of the USSR occupation was a state-the USSR, but later-the Russian Federation, the successor of the rights and obligations of the USSR. On 13 June 2000, the Seimas adopted the Republic of Lithuania Law "On Compensation for the Damage Infl icted by the USSR Occupation", which came into force on 28 June 2000. This law has not been amended or supplemented. It was adopted inter alia in line with the universally recognised norms and principles of international law as well as the international practice of compensation of damage caused by occupations, including the damage caused by the German occupations to other countries and the citizens thereof, during the World War II period, the 4 June 1991 Republic of Lithuania Supreme Council-Reconstituent Seimas Resolution "On Compensation for the Damage Infl icted upon the Republic of Lithuania and Its Residents by the USSR in 1940-1990", the 29 July 1991 Treaty between the Republic of Lithuania and the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic on the Basis for Relations between States, in which the Parties declared to be "convinced that once the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics annuls the consequences of the 1940 annexation violating Lithuania's sovereignty, there will be additional conditions Andrius Bambalas and Saulius Katuoka (eds.
The Debate about Soviet Genocide in Lithuania in the Case Law of The European Court of Human Rights
NATIONALITIES PAPERS, 2020
Since 1990 Lithuania has been claiming that what happened there during Soviet occupation is genocide, as per the 1948 Genocide Convention, which embodies universal justice for suppressed nations and other groups. Due to Soviet actions in Lithuania throughout the periods of 1940-1941 and 1944-1990, the country lost almost one fifth of its population. The application of Lithuanian national legal regulations regarding this issue has been recently discussed in the framework of another postwar international legal instrument – the European Convention of Human Rights (1950). The goal of this article is to examine the main debates, which were revealed by the European Court of Human Rights in the cases of Vasiliauskas v. Lithuania (2015) and Drėlingas v. Lithuania (2019), regarding the killings of Lithuanian partisans, including the recognition of the significance of partisans for the Lithuanian nation, the foreseeability of genocide “in part,” as well as the punishment for complicity in kil...
Strani pravni zivot
The article points to the problem of a lack of adequate mechanism for correcting errors of state institutions in their performance of public administration functions. It analyses the legal regulation and case law on the above issue. The analysis of court cases identified in the paper shows that for a long time there was a tendency to place on the citizens the burden of correcting the mistakes made by state institutions. In this way, property rights on legally acquired property were restricted or invalidated. This problem was in the Lithuanian context broadly discussed by the international courts. The aim of the article is to present the scale of the problem and the evolution of legal regulation and case law aimed at remedying it.
To Live and to Learn: The EU Commission’s Failure to Recognise Rule of Law Deficiencies in Lithuania
Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 2022
During the last decade, it has become apparent that the European Union (EU) Commission is failing to halt rule of law decline in Poland and Hungary. However, has the Commission learnt from its experience in handling rule of law decline in these countries? This article suggests that not only has the EU Commission failed to learn the importance of swift action in the face of burgeoning rule of law crises but has actively ignored similar systemic issues altogether in Lithuania, a country that has historically been an exemplary Member State. This article will analyse the status of the rule of law and judicial independence in Lithuania in light of the EU Commission’s first two Rule of Law Reports published in September 2020 and July 2021. These reports were designed to act as a preventative measure to protect the rule of law in each Member State through documenting and raising awareness for rule of law developments in the Union. Lithuania has largely slipped under the radar of constituti...
National Constitutions in European and Global Governance: Democracy, Rights, the Rule of Law, 2019
The Lithuanian Constitution (1992) is described in the report as a typical revolutionary constitution, adopted after the collapse of a totalitarian regime. The Constitutional Court (CC) is a strong player both in terms of the protection of fundamental rights and as an arbitrator in political disputes. The report observes that due to their bitter historical struggle for statehood, Lithuanians have generally treated membership in the EU as a fundamental geopolitical choice. From this perspective, the Constitution is unique, as it was – in a self-standing constitutional act – extensively opened to the EU, whilst another constitutional act prohibits joining any union based on the former USSR. The CC has held that the Constitution establishes a constitutional imperative of EU and NATO membership. By and large, no critical constitutional debates have arisen in relation to EU and transnational law. Some exceptions include an (unsuccessful) request to hold a referendum on the adoption of th...
Law-governed state in the Lithuanian Constitutional Doctrine (1918-1940)
2015
How must the state life be organized to ensure right protection of all the people and realization of the rights? Striving this aim, it is orienting on a law-governed State model which is formulated as the long-term and strategic ideal of the State's development in the preamble of 1992 Constitution of Republic of Lithuania. While analysing the current constitutional regulation and searching for the methods to improve and resources to strengthen the constitutional system, researchers of the constitutional law look for the background information in the most recent legal experience, EU constitutional tradition and even more-in the experience of constitutionalism in the entire world and Lithuania. The reason is simple-it is Western tradition where the concepts of the constitutionalism, democracy and rule of law gained their true meaning. The idea and practise of law-governed state is the product of the capitalistic epoch in essence. It developed as an organized effort of a citizen to restrict the self-will of the State authority with respect to his rights in the Western Europe and America. This trend evolved from the legal state to the law-governed state (rule of law) and, finally, to the social state or the welfare state. A conscious realization of law-governed State model is based on the knowledge what kinds of measures of human rights protection it disposes and what the possibilities of those measures to reach this aim were in Lithuania. This article is an attempt to revise a tradition of the European constitutionalism and assess its impact on the Constitutions of the first Republic of Lithuania (1918-1940), to discuss application of the European constitutional heritage while developing the constitutional provisions in Lithuania. Moreover, it analyses (in the context of the European constitutionalism tradition) the Lithuanian scientific heritage related to theoretical and practical issues of the constitutionalism. It is analysis of scientific, national and legal experience of the Western European countries of 19 th-20 th century that the Lithuanian legal scientists referred to in their attempts to create a model of a perfect state under the rule of law. They also reviewed ideas of the constitutionalism that evolved into the constitutional provisions of the independent Lithuania in early 20 th century.
The paper explores the role of the international right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health in the development of the legal framework in Lithuania to address violence against women. The right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health is entrenched under various international legal instruments. These have been ratified by Lithuania which, in 2011, also adopted a Law for the protection against domestic violence. Violence against women, including domestic violence, is undoubtedly a violation of the right to health; therefore the Lithuanian context provides an opportunity to evaluate the duties of the state in this regard more precisely. Indicators on human rights measurement have been instrumental in this evaluation.