Today’s meeting in the Parliament addressed the existing gaps in the protection of human rights, among others, focusing on the recent HRMI research into the excessive and unjustifiable use of the ID number in Lithuania.
Kęstutis Čilinskas, the HRMI Board Chairman, and Henrikas Mickevičius, the Executive Director, presented the Overview of Human Rights in Lithuania, and the latest HRMI research The Right to Respect for Private Life: ID Number Usage in Lithuania.
Artūras Paulauskas, the Chairman of the Seimas, thanked the HRMI for the initiative in monitoring, analysing and evaluating the situation of human rights in Lithuania. He considered the research interesting in many aspects and useful for planning concrete reforms in the legal system of Lithuania.
During active discussions, relevant questions were analysed including the difficulties in realisation of the right to fair trial, and the abundance of violations of the right to respect for private life (unjustifiable and public use of ID numbers, the extent of wire-tapping and related violations).
A variety of recommendations and proposals were provided during the meeting. The Chairman of the Seimas marked the necessity of tightening the procedure of power granting for the tapping of private conversations. Setting strict terms and ambit of wire-tapping was mentioned as the most urgent reform. The President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania proposed the Supreme Court of Lithuania as the most suitable institution to overview current practice to sanction restrictions of private life and issue recommendations for courts.
The HRMI provided recommendations on minimising the threat of ungrounded use of ID numbers. The Members of the Institute recommended to amend the Law on Protection of Personal Data. First of all, the principle of disclosing as few personal data as possible should be introduced into the law. Second, the structure of ID numbers must be modified so as to eliminate from these numbers all references to other private information such as the date of birth, sex, etc.
The discussion was also attended by V.Valančius, the President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, O.Jakštaitė, the Director of the State Data Protection Inspectorate, A. Burneikienė, the Head of the Office of the Equal Opportunities, and the officials of the Seimas Committee on Human Rights and the UN Development Program.
For more information on the above event, please study LRT Žinios, 6:30 pm, 23-07-2004; LRT Panorama, 8:30 pm, 23-07-2004; TV3 Žinios (you may look here), 6:45 pm, 23-07-2004; TV4 Žinios (you may look here), 8:00 pm, 23-07-2004; LNK Žinios (you may look here), 6:45 pm, 23-07-2004; www.delfi.lt, www.omni.lt (1 and 2) and www.tv.lt.
© 2012 Human Rights Monitoring Institute