Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson – national equality body – emphasises in its 2010 annual report the negative effects of governmental budget cuts on anti-discrimination activities, causing the closure of governmental bodies and diminishing the total number of complaints.
Amendments to the Penal Code and Code of Administrative Offences, banning agitation of homosexuality and propagation of homosexual relationship introduced at the Parliament
European Anti-Discrimination Law Review Issue No. 3 | April 2006
Introduction
The information contained on this page represents the situation as of 31 December 2009 and is a summary of the country report produced by the country expert from the network. The summary can be downloaded here as well.
Lithuania regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. The present Constitution was approved by referendum in 1992. On 1May 2004 Lithuania joined the EU, meaning that significant changes to the legal system had taken place in little over a decade to meet EU and international standards. It must be mentioned that in most cases legal changes were not widely discussed, and so society was not sufficiently prepared for new equality standards.
The latest amendments of June 2008 eliminated some of the weaknesses in the transposition of the main definitions. Currently the Law in most cases repeats the wording of the Directives, without going into details of particular provisions, thus some concepts still require judicial interpretation.
No special judicial, administrative or conciliation procedures for cases of discrimination exist at national level. Mediation in discrimination disputes is also not covered by national law. The Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson sometimes acts as a mediator in practice, but this procedure is not formalised and does not provide the victim with compensation.
The principle of equality is protected by the Constitution. Although age, disability and sexual orientation are not explicitly mentioned in the constitutional equality clause, the Constitution could presumably be interpreted in such a way as to protect against discrimination on these grounds (jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court on equality remains rather scarce).
National anti-discrimination law is applied in both the public and private sectors. It should be applied in employment, education, and access to goods and services on all grounds covered by the Directives. In addition, national anti-discrimination law also provides protection against discrimination on the grounds of social status, language and convictions.
The Equal Opportunities Ombudspersonis the national anti-discrimination body, founded in order to fulfil the requirements of the Racial Equality Directive. When the Law on Equal Treatment came in force in 2005 it expanded the mandate of the previous Ombudsperson for Equal Opportunities for Men and Women. Thus a new institution – the Equal Opportunities Ombudsperson – covering all grounds of discrimination in Directives 2000/43/EC and 2000/78/EC and the ground of gender started working from 1 January 2005. The Ombudsperson monitors the implementation of the Law on Equal Treatment in the manner prescribed by theLaw on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men.The Ombudsperson is financed from the fiscal budget. It is the main national institution dealing with equality and non-discrimination.
This initiative is financed by the EC Programme Progress. But the views expressed in this website do not necessarily reflect the official views of the EU institutions.
