- April 19, 2013
- 308
The project of surnames’ spelling already in May
According to the Minister of Justice Juozas Bernatonis, the project of non-Lithuanian surnames’ spelling should be prepared and submitted to the government till May.
“I have appointed the working group in order to prepare a decision; I hope that on May 1st we will have the decision and we will submit it to the government for investigation. Currently I can’t say what solution will we choose, however, it is obvious that our proposal will not be contradictory to the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, but it will solve the problem so that it won’t violate the human rights” – said the Minister of Justice Juozas Bernatonis while submitting the government activity report on Thursday.
The government commissioned the Ministry of Justice of Lithuania to prepare the draft which would allow to the spelling of non-Lithuanian surnames in official documents. The reason for that was the fact that this question concerns many Lithuanian Poles and Lithuanians who are getting married to foreigners.
The Minister of Justice admitted that finding solution in accordance with law and the Constitution of Lithuania will be very difficult.
In 1999, the Constitutional Tribunal stated that “a name and surname in the passport of a citizen should be written in the official language”, “otherwise it would stand in contradiction with the constitutional status of the official language”. These decisions were confirmed by the Constitutional Tribunal in 2009.
In April 2010, the Lithuanian government rejected a bill prepared by the government of conservative Andrius Kubilius in which it was proposed to write the surnames of Latin origin in official documents in accordance with the original, so not to lithuanize them.
Based on: BNS
Source:http://www.wilnoteka.lt/pl/artykul/projekt-pisowni-nazwisk-juz-w-maju
Tłumaczenie Barbara Rożek w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Barbara Rożek within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
