- March 26, 2014
- 132
Spring Session of the Parliament – a new date of adoption of the law on national minorities
FB/Joanna MoroLaw on national minorities is to be adopted during the Spring Session of the Lithuanian Parliament. However, the Chairman of the Parliament Loreta Graužinienė stipulated that it will not be a law ‘just for one national minority’.
‘One draft of the law had just been presented, the other is already being discussed. The government is consulting also with other national minorities. We cannot adopt a law just for one national minority. (…) We want to prepare a really good law to avoid any misunderstandings, and we do not see any reason for doing it in a hurry. It will be better if we discuss and, hopefully, adopt the law on national minorities during the Spring Session,’ said Loreta Graužinienė in an interview for ‘Žinių radijas’ radio. ‘It is important for the law to be accepted by all national minorities in Lithuania,’ added Graužinienė.
Adoption of the law on national minorities is demanded mainly by Poles living in Lithuania.
The absence of the law was recently discussed in Lithuania during the visit of the Deputy Speaker of the Polish Parliament Cezary Grabarczyk. He met, among others, with Loreta Graužinienė. During his visit in Vilnius Grabarczyk stated, that the absence of the law on national minorities violates rights of Poles living in Lithuania.
Works on the new version of law on national minorities continue for several years. The last one, adopted in 1989, had expired on January 1st 2010.
According to the census from 2011, in Lithuania there are living 200 thousands of Poles, 177 thousands of Russians, 36 thousands of Belarusians and 16 thousands of Ukrainians.
On the basis of: BNS, delfi.lt
Tłumaczenie by Anna Leśkiewicz w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Anna Leśkiewicz within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
