Lithuanian Government approves the legislative initiative that supports family but recommends modifications as this law could be discriminatory towards single parents or families who are not united by marriage.
The recommendation prepared by The Ministry of Social Security and Labor was approved during Government’s session on October 5th. The Government underlines that there is no general legal family concept, therefore it is deemed necessary to define non-discriminatory family concept in the proposed law. The Government recalls that The Constitutional Court of The Republic of Lithuania has already established that married couples are not the only ones to be included in the family concept.
The Government agreed to reject the preamble of the law regardless of Rokas Masiulis, Minister of Energy, opposition. He expressed his discontent as “I understand that the preamble can be questioned, but it was formed according to researchers recommendations on how to raise Lithuanian population. Our Government is formed by the former Government’s policies regarding decreasing population, therefore I support the preamble proposed by legislators”.
The minister of Social Security and Labor Algimanta Pabedinskienė expressed that the proposal to delete preamble of the draft law is valid and Parliament should consider it. Family Support law was prepared by 55 Parliament members from Homeland Union – Lithuanian Christian Democrats, Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania, and other Parliamentary groups. The preamble underlines that “family emanates from complementarity between a man and a woman and is essential for the foundation of the community and growth, development and learning of a child”, it also concludes that the foundation of a family is “a decision between a man and a woman based on free will to undertake moral and legal obligations”.
The Ministry proposes to reject the presented preamble as the family concept should include people united on basis other than marriage and the concept of family life should not be based only on relationships between married and unmarried parents and their children. The law would regulate the Republic of Lithuania’s family policy and proposes to establish institutions such as National Family Council and the Committee of Family Policy. Initiators legitimate their proposal due to demographic situation.
