Fourteen same-sex couples file complaints with bailiffs over ministry’s failure to enforce court rulings

Fourteen same-sex couples in Lithuania have turned to bailiffs after the Ministry of Justice refused to comply with court orders to register their partnerships, public broadcaster LRT reports.

The couples have asked the bailiffs to impose daily fines on the ministry for each day it fails to execute the rulings. A general jurisdiction court has already granted the first such penalty—€10 per day—until the ministry complies, according to a Tuesday statement by the Freedom Party, which is coordinating the legal push.

Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, a board member of the Freedom Party, accused the ministry of deliberately delaying the process, noting that partnership registration could be implemented via ministerial order using the existing Marriage Contract Registry system. “These families no longer need political debates. The courts have clearly ruled that their partnerships must be registered so that, for example, hospital staff can immediately see their status in the system,” Raskevičius said. “Yet the Ministry of Justice pretends it lacks the means to act. Such behavior is unacceptable in a rule-of-law state.”

Freedom Party leader Vytautas Mitalas placed responsibility on Prime Minister Ingrida Ruginienė, urging her to ensure Justice Minister Rita Tamašunienė “stops acting arbitrarily” and enforces the court decisions. Mitalas criticised the government’s inability to resolve “real problems faced by Lithuanian residents,” recalling that Vilnius had proposed a municipal solution for registrations, only for the ministry to block it by promising a nationwide system.

The ministry had initially planned to draft implementation rules by April 2025 following a Constitutional Court ruling last year that declared the lack of same-sex partnership recognition unconstitutional. However, its position shifted after Tamašunienė took office, culminating in an appeal against a lower court’s registration order in March.

Lithuania’s Civil Code currently allows cohabitation agreements (partnerystė) but restricts them to opposite-sex couples—a provision the Constitutional Court struck down as discriminatory in 2023. The court also ruled that the 20-year failure to adopt a dedicated partnership law violated constitutional principles.