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In the case on the formation of female surnames, the Supreme Administrative Court appealed to the Constitutional Court

In the case on the formation of female surnames, the Supreme Administrative Court appealed to the Constitutional Court
2024-11-04

Spelling of women's surnames: Having questioned the constitutionality of the provisions which do not provide the citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of Lithuanian nationality with the possibility to choose the untransliterated form of their surname, the Supreme Administrative Court of the Republic of Lithuania has appealed to the Constitutional Court for an assessment of whether such a legal regulation does not contradict the principle of equal rights of the Constitution.

In accordance with the interpretations of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Administrative Court stressed that the provisions of the Constitution and the Law on the State Language, according to which the state language of the Republic of Lithuania is the Lithuanian language, are closely related to the constitutional principle of equality of persons, as the state language not only protects the nation's identity, integrates the civic nation, ensures the expression of the nation's sovereignty, the integrity of the state, the normal functioning of the state and municipal institutions, but also is a guarantee of the equality of citizens. Therefore, no exclusive rules can be laid down for the use of the official language on the basis of a person's nationality.

31 January 1991 - Supreme Council of Lithuania By the regulation established in point 2 of the Resolution No I-1031 "On Writing Names and Surnames in the Passport of a Citizen of the Republic of Lithuania", the right to grammaticalise or not to grammaticalise the name and surname written in the passport of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania is exclusively granted to the persons of non-Lithuanian ethnicity, with no separate provision of such a right to the persons of Lithuanian nationality. In this respect, it is noted that the use of the Lithuanian language as the state language in the public life of the state, which includes, among other things, the writing of personal names in official personal documents, is regulated taking into account the characteristics of the Lithuanian language, its system, tradition and internal development. Therefore, personal names are changed and corrected in accordance with the special rules of the Lithuanian language norms, grammar, official usage and linguistic science. However, in the present case, the legal regulation of the spelling of personal names in the passport of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania is linked not to the rules of spelling (grammaticalisation) rules and/or Lithuanian language tradition, but with the nationality of the bearer of the name and surname. Thus, the legal act establishes that the writing of names and surnames of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian nationality in the passport, by selecting either the grammatical or the ungrammatical form, does not endanger the common Lithuanian language, its uniqueness, nor does it raise any doubt about the inconsistency of these forms (or of one of them) with the tradition of Lithuanian language. For the above reasons, the Supreme Administrative Court had doubts whether the same provision could not be applied to the spelling of names and surnames of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of Lithuanian nationality, since the principle of spelling names and surnames in the same way in the passport, in the state language, must be applied to all citizens of the Republic of Lithuania without exception, i.e. to citizens of Lithuanian nationality as well as to citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of Lithuanian nationality of other nationalities.

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