Danėlienė, Ingrida

On 1 September 2019 amendments to the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania came into effect, establishing for the first time in the Lithuanian legal system the right of an individual to apply to the Constitutional Court directly. Lithuania has opted for the limited model of individual constitutional complaint. The Constitution only allows for the review of constitutionality of acts based on which an individual decision has been adopted, possibly breaching the constitutional rights and freedoms of a natural or legal person. Accordingly, direct individual access to the Constitutional Court is an extraordinary measure of defense of constitutional rights and freedoms and is only available following the exhaustion of all effective legal remedies, while judicial decisions adopted by ordinary courts are not an object of constitutional control. The article concludes that the preconditions of effective individual constitutional justice are created by the following elements of the constitutional complaint. First, a broad definition of subjects able to launch a constitutional complaint, constituting natural persons and all legal persons of private and public law. Second, a broad definition of the object of review, it being all laws and other acts which fall within the scope of control of constitutionality carried out by the Constitutional Court (normative and individual acts; all acts adopted not only by the Parliament, President, Government, but also by referendum). Third, the retroactive inter partes effect of the rulings adopted following the examination of constitutional complaints. The article concludes that although sustainable conclusions regarding the efficiency of the newly established mechanism are yet to be made, it is expected that the individual constitutional complaint will become an effective domestic measure of last resort for the protection of human rights and freedom with regard to practices based on unconstitutional acts.

Lietuvos Respublikoje galiojantis teisinis reguliavimas nenumato galimybės asmenims, įskaitant nelietuvių kilmės asmenis, jiems išduodamuose dokumentuose vardus ar pavardes rašyti kitokiais nei lietuviškais rašmenimis. Nepaisant to, šalyje kasmet daugėja piliečių, kuriems išduotose asmens tapatybės kortelėse ar pasuose nurodytuose asmenvardžiuose yra nelietuviškos q, x ar w raidės. Lietuvos Respublikos piliečių, sudariusių santuoką su užsienio piliečiais, bei jų vaikų teisę į originaliomis nelietuviškomis lotyniškosios abėcėlės raidėmis, vadovaudamiesi Europos Sąjungos teise, jau nuo 2015 m. pripažįsta žemesniųjų instancijų ordinariniai teismai. Šių teismų sprendimai priimami nepaisant 2013 m. liepos 17 d. Lietuvos Aukščiausiojo Teismo nutarties, kuria konstatuota, jog visų Lietuvos Respublikos piliečių asmenvardžiai asmens dokumentuose, patvirtinančiuose jų pilietybę, turi būti rašomi valstybine kalba. 2021 m. spalio 6 d. priimta nutartimi kasacinis teismas, nors ir formaliai nekeisdamas savo ankstesnės praktikos, patvirtino Lietuvos Respublikos pilietės, sudariusios santuoką su užsienio valstybės piliečiu, teisę į pavardę su lietuvių kalbos abėcėlėje nesančiu diakritiniu ženklu ć. Straipsnyje nagrinėjama, kuo asmenvardžių rašybos požiūriu yra reikšminga ši žemesniųjų teismų nuo 2015 m. formuojamą praktiką iš esmės patvirtinanti kasacinio teismo nutartis, kiek ji tvari ir atitinkanti visuminį konstitucinį bei teisinį reguliavimą.

The European constitutional tradition rests on the foundation of human rights, the rule of law and democracy. In its interpretation of the meaning of the provisions of Article 1 of the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania,1 the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter also referred to as the Constitutional Court) stressed in 2014 that the innate nature of human rights, democracy and the independence of the state are those constitutional values that form the foundation of the Constitution and the whole State of Lithuania.2 No one may deny the provisions of the Constitution that consolidate these fundamental constitutional values; otherwise, the essence of the Constitution itself would be denied. Democracy, as one of the three constitutional values mentioned above, is inconceivable without democratic elections and, in most countries, without referendums. The article confirms that democratic elections and referendums are both based on the same constitutional foundations: the sovereignty of the people, democracy and the constitutionally guaranteed electoral rights. The constitutionally consolidated democratic principles governing elections to political representative institutions are, therefore, mutatis mutandis applicable to referendums. Some of these universal principles underlying the European electoral tradition, as well as examples of national experience in applying these principles, are discussed in the article.

The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania was adopted by referendum on 25 October 1992. The source of the Constitution is the Nation. The Constitution is a constituent act of the Nation; therefore, it is primary law in terms of both legal force and content, i.e. it is the centre of legal life and determines the directions and content of lawmaking. The Constitution is a social contract: this special legal act establishes public authority, contains an agreement on the composition of public authority and on the procedures for its organisation and functioning, consolidates human rights and freedoms, and provides for the ways of protecting them. At the same time, the Constitution consolidates the state as the common good of the whole of society; the strivings and values of the Nation that are enshrined in the Constitution express the constitutional identity of the State of Lithuania. As an act of a substantive nature, the Constitution is based on universal and unquestionable democratic values, inherent in the tradition of western law; moreover, the Constitution is an anti-majoritarian act, protecting the freedom and innate rights of not only the Nation, but also the individual.