- May 23, 2013
- 442
The Polish Card given the green light. The project of the conservatives rejected.
The Seimas of the Lithuanian Republic defeated the motion which was put forward by the conservative party, demanding issuing a writ by the Constitutional Court in order to reconsider the question of the Polish Card. The project of the Homeland Union did not achieve the majority-voting in Seimas.
On 23rd May for the third time it was attempted to express the demands concerning the Polish Card to the Constitutional Court.
The project of the conservative party was supported by 29 deputies, whereas 33 voted against and 41 abstained from voting. Amongst them were mostly the conservatives, two deputies of the Mixed Deputy Group (Mišrios Seimo narių grupė) and one from the Labour Party. The rest of the parliamentarians voiced their disapproval or abstained from voting.
The initiators of the project were the members of the conservative party – Audronius Ažubalis, the former foreign secretary, Rasa Juknevičienė, the former minister of protection of Lithuania, alongside deputies Vilija Aleknaitė-Abramikienė and Valentinas Stundys. They justified their motion on the grounds of the judgement of the Constitutional Court, which in 1998 passed the law that the candidate for the member of the Lithuanian Sejmas must not be bound either by the oath or any other obligations connecting him with another land.
The Polish Card, which has been so severely criticised by the Lithuanian authorities, has been issued to over 1000 Lithuanian citizens of Polish origin every year. According to the data of the Polish Embassy in Lithuanian in 2011 it was granted for 1 024 Poles, in 2010 – for 1 197 of them. Over 4 000 documents altogether have been issued so far.
Source: http://zw.lt/litwa/tak-dla-karty-polaka-projekt-konserwatystow-odrzucony/
Tłumaczenie by Joanna Mirek w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Joanna Mirek within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
