Lithuanian MP Rita Tamašunienė, a representative of the Polish Electoral Action/Union of Christian Families party and the alderwoman of the Lithuanian Regions faction in parliament, Thursday announced plans to reintroduce legislation for a Law on Ethnic Minorities drafted back in 2013. It met with disapproval from the Lithuanian parliament’s Legal Department and Law and Order Committee earlier for possibly violating the Lithuanian constitution.

The legislation attempts to define basic principles for protecting the rights and freedoms of ethnic groups, to regulate protection of ethnic minority education, use of languages and cultural values, and to regulate NGO activities.

The draft law provides: “in administrative territorial units where a given ethnic minority lives closely together, local institutions and organization use the (local) language of that ethnic minority along with the state language.” It also says street signs in such areas may include ones in the local minority language alongside Lithuanian signs.

It was this last aspect of the law that drew a negative reaction from the parliament’s attorneys earlier.

Back in 2013 the Legal Department under the parliament’s Chancellery presented this finding: “The Lithuanian language, given the status of [official] state language by the constitution, must be used at all state and municipal institutions, at all institutions, enterprises and organizations located in Lithuania. Laws and other legal acts must be promulgated in the official language; correspondence, inventories, reports, financial documents my be written in the Lithuanian language; national and local institutions, agencies and enterprises correspond with one another in Lithuanian. In light of this, we believe the position proposed would violate the status of the official language defined in article 14 of the constitution.”

The parliament’s Law and Order Committee later issued their finding on the draft legislation in 2016.

An earlier Law on Ethnic Minorities was adopted by on November 23, 1989, which was expanded and amended by Lithuania’s Supreme Soviet/Constituent Parliament on January 29, 1991. That law was annulled in 2010.

At the present time protection of ethnic minority rights and freedoms are regulated in various separate documents.

Full story in Lithuanian here.