Lithuania to follow EU court ruling on same-sex marriage recognition - parlt speaker

VILNIUS - Lithuania will comply with a top European court's ruling that an EU nation must recognize a same-sex marriage lawfully concluded in another member state, Juozas Olekas, the speaker of the parliament, said on Wednesday.

"We will comply with the court ruling, because I believe we do not have the option not to, as this concerns universally recognized human rights. We will probably have to amend our legislation so we can implement these decisions more smoothly," he told Ziniu Radijas.

Olekas noted that Lithuanian courts are already issuing rulings on the recognition of same-sex partnerships, meaning that the country's legal framework will have to include the necessary provisions.

The Constitutional Court ruled last April that the parliament had violated the Constitution by failing for 24 years to adopt a separate law with detailed regulation of partnerships to bring into effect the Civil Code provisions on cohabitation outside marriage. The court also found that partnership must cover not only different-sex but also same-sex couples.

Following that ruling, the Vilnius District Court in August recognized a same-sex partnership for the first time.

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled on Tuesday that EU member states must recognize same-sex marriages registered in other member states.

The ruling followed a complaint filed by two Polish citizens who married in Germany and later sought to move to Poland and have their marriage certificate registered there.

Polish authorities informed the spouses that national law does not allow same-sex marriages.

The Justice Ministry told BNS later on Tuesday that the CJEU ruling does not oblige Lithuania to legalize same-sex marriages under its laws.

Justice Minister Rita Tamasuniene also said that the ruling does not change member states' discretion to set their own rules on the recognition of marriage.

Social Democrat Laurynas Sedvydis, chairman of the parliament's Committee on Human Rights, has registered draft amendments defining a partnership as an agreement between two people (partners) to live together "in a family relationship based on mutual responsibility, understanding, emotional attachment, support, ties, and a voluntary commitment to assume certain rights and duties."

Partners would be individuals who have registered their partnership under the prescribed procedure. According to the authors of the amendments, this would introduce the institution of registered partnership into the Civil Code.

The proposal would make partnership gender-neutral, meaning it could be concluded by both opposite-sex and same-sex couples. The draft does not provide for the possibility of partners adopting children.

Sedvydis said the bill will seek to ensure that marriages concluded in other countries would have the legal status of a partnership in Lithuania.

Olekas said he had wanted to start debating the partnership issue in the current session.

"After the court ruling, we may now have an additional reason, so if we do not manage to do this in the fall session, we certainly have to do it in the spring session," he said.

Efforts to recognize gender-neutral partnerships under Lithuanian law have so far failed to pass the parliament.

In the previous legislative term, two bills were introduced to regulate partnerships between both different-sex and same-sex couples: the Law on Civil Union and amendments to the Civil Code introducing the concept of a "close relationship." However, the proposed changes were not adopted.