„We understand the problem – women marrying foreign citizens cannot have their husbands' last name, their children cannot have their husbands' last name, if they are citizens of Lithuania. This should be decided,“ Vaisniene told journalists after meeting with Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius.
She restated that the Constitutional Court has ruled that official documents cannot contain non-Lithuanian characters, however, in her words, the court has not ruled on cases of initial documents with non-Lithuanian alphabet.
„We think lawyers should give their opinion here, the chapter regarding the initial source should be applied in cases of marriages to foreign citizens and assuming their last names. The commission would not object this,“ Vaisniene said.
Meanwhile, asked about the demand of the Polish community to have their names spelled in Polish letters, the commission's chairperson said that entries on the second page of a document, for instance, passport, was the only solution.
„The Constitutional Court has said about the second and all other pages that they can contain entries in a way that the applicant has requested. I think this does not violate the status of the official language,“ she added.
In Vaisniene's words, the meeting with the prime minister also discussed the need to keep the scope of the teaching of the official language at the current scope, the necessity to strengthen the teaching of the Lithuanian language as one of the main instruments of public integration and future successful entry in the labor market.
Currently, personal names cannot be spelled in non-Lithuanian characters, however, changes have been proposed to the scheme in the light of requests from the Polish community and amid argumentation that the current scheme caused trouble for the Lithuanian citizens who have married foreigners.
