Vilnius district council rejects commission on Gulbinowicz honours

The Vilnius District Municipality Council on Friday rejected a proposal to establish a temporary commission to review historical memory issues, including streets named after Cardinal Henryk Gulbinowicz and his continued status as an honorary citizen. LRT reported.

The commission proposed by council member Daniel Ilkevičius would have assessed how people, monuments, commemorative plaques, streets and other public spaces are honoured in the district. Twelve council members voted in favour, seven against and 11 abstained, meaning the proposal failed.

None of the 17 members of the Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania Christian Families Alliance who took part in the vote supported the proposal. Seven voted against it and 10 abstained. Henrikas Subočius was the 11th council member to abstain.

“I view the result with great disappointment. It is difficult to understand why there is fear of a commission that would only objectively analyse historical memory issues and make recommendations to the council,” Ilkevičius, a Freedom Party politician, told LRT.lt.

“Despite this result, I do not intend to give up, because there should be no place in the Vilnius district’s public spaces for honouring people associated with the sexual abuse of children,” he said.

The vote was not directly about renaming the streets bearing Gulbinowicz’s name or revoking his honorary citizen status. Ilkevičius said the proposed commission would have created consistent criteria for reviewing such decisions, rather than reopening the debate each time a controversial case arose.

Ilkevičius has previously sought to remove Gulbinowicz’s name from public spaces by renaming the streets and has also called for the honorary title to be revoked.

Electoral Action of Poles in Lithuania Christian Families Alliance council member Tadeusz Andrzejewski questioned the need for a new commission, saying an existing municipal commission could partly perform the same functions. Ilkevičius replied that the existing body focuses mainly on granting names and honorary titles, while his proposed commission would review decisions that had already been made. He said he was willing to discuss merging the functions.

Another alliance representative, Waldemar Urban, said the proposal needed more preparation. He said it did not include rules governing the commission’s work, procedures for its operation, details of its membership or competence requirements for its members.

“Perhaps the proposal needs to be discussed in greater detail and first presented to a working group, rather than being submitted in this unfinished and unprepared form, without regulations or procedures,” Urban said.