Instead of adopting the law on conditions and procedure for gender-reassignment, Lithuania decided to pay the compensation amounting to 40 000 Euros awarded to the applicant L. by European Court of Human Rights.
ECHR has passed a judgment in the case of L. against Lithuania on September 11th, 2007. The request of Lithuanian Government to refer the case to the Grand Chamber for reconsideration was denied by ECHR this spring. The judgement became final on March 31st 2008 (see more about the case here and here).
According to the judgment Lithuania had within three months to adopt the required subsidiary legislation implementing the right to gender-reassigment provided by the Civil Code. Alternatively, should those legislative measures prove impossible to adopt within three months of the judgment becoming final, Lithuania was to pay L. 40 000 Euros.
The Ministry of Justice has announced that Government has already transfered to L. the compensation of 138 000 Litas (equivalent of 40 000 Euros) as the required legislation has not been passed within the time indicated by ECHR.
The payment of compensation does not dispense the government from its legal obligation to fill in the legislative gap violating the Conventional right. However, instead of taking steps towards rectification of defective legal framework, some MPs suggest that the right to gender-reassignment provided by the Civil Code should be revoked.
See more in news portal DELFI (in Lithuanian).
© 2012 Human Rights Monitoring Institute