The Lithuanian government decided on Wednesday to propose that the parliament discard a notorious 2009 law that shield minors from information about same-sex marriage and LGBTQI issues.
The law has been found incompatible with the right to free expression by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which has prompted the Justice Ministry to draft the amendments.
“By adopting [the amendments], Lithuania would avoid the European Commission’s rights infringement [proceedings], as is the case with Hungary now,” said Justice Minister Ewelina Dobrowolska to journalists.
The Law on the Protection of Minors from the Negative Effects of Public Information includes a provision that says minors are harmed by information that “denigrates family values, promotes a different concept of marriage and creation of family from the one enshrined in the Constitution and the Civil Code”.
The Justice Ministry proposes to scrap this provision.
The law has been used to censor a book of children’s stories, titled Amber Heart, by Neringa Macatė, who went to court challenging the decision.
The book includes a story depicting same-sex romantic relationships. It was published by the Lithuanian University of Educational Sciences in 2013.
However, the university suspended the distribution of the book a few months later, citing as the reason a document from the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics stating that Macatė’s book was harmful to children aged under 14.
The office said its position was based on existing law.
If approved by the cabinet, the amendment will go to the parliament, whose members have diverse opinions on the ministry’s initiative.
Aušrinė Armonaitė, leader of the liberal Freedom Party, said she hoped that the proposal to remove this provision from the law would not worsen relations in the ruling coalition.
“This is the government’s bill, so we expect unanimous support for it,” she said.
Armonaitė said that “it will be very bad” if the parliament failed to pass the amendment.
“We will continue to stagnate where we are now,” she said. “We aim for genuine, real press freedom in Lithuania.”
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