The Lithuanian President has “forgotten” proposals to ban abortions and to introduce administrative sanctions for “homosexual propaganda”

The controversial legislative proposals to ban abortions and to introduce administrative sanctions for “homosexual propaganda” have received no attention by the President in the course of her annual statement, which was read in front of the Lithuanian Parliament on 11 June 2013. It seems that the President has closed her eyes by refusing to refer to some negative developments in the Lithuanian politics.

The Lithuanian Parliament has recently accepted three controversial bills for the parliamentary deliberation, obviously going against the European standards. None of the proposals, i.e. to introduce administrative sanctions for “homosexual propaganda”, total ban on abortions and prohibition of gender reassignment, has received no attention from Ms President whatsoever. In addition to this, only the Liberal Movement has unanimously opposed these legislative proposals among the Lithuanian political parties.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has previously indicated that these limitations would go against fundamental human rights, enshrined in the Convention. The negative attitudes towards these developments have been expressed not only by the local human rights defenders, but also by the EU Commissioner Viviane Reding.

However, the Lithuanian President Ms Grybauskaitė has not referred to these controversial developments in the course of her annual statement. Previously she has indicated to the press that “[t]here are various controversial funny proposals in the Parliament.” “The Parliament approves many amendments. Sometimes they generate funny results, and sometimes not so funny ones. We will see, what actual results will be,” – said the President back then.

The political analyst Mr. Algis Krupavičius indicated that these topics were not touched upon in the annual statement, because the society is heavily divided upon these lines. “The President always seeks to stay aside when there are conflicting views on the issue in the society. Certain degree of veiling could be identified as a characteristic of her political behavior,” – says the analyst.