Government backs family strengthening law changes despite minister’s criticism

The Lithuanian government on Wednesday broadly backed proposed amendments to the Law on Strengthening the Family, LRT reported. It also proposed that the Seimas consider retaining the National Family Council as a budgetary institution.

The bill, initiated by Social Democratic lawmakers Orinta Leiputė, Indrė Kižienė, Birutė Vėsaitė, Jurgita Šukevičienė, Jūratė Zailskienė and Darius Razmislevičius, would revise the goals, principles and definitions of family policy.

It would also turn the National Family Council from a budgetary institution into an advisory body operating on a voluntary basis, change the functions of the Family Policy Commission and allow awards for merit in motherhood, fatherhood, guardianship or care.

Health Minister Linas Kukuraitis proposed that the government urge the Seimas to consider keeping the council’s current status so it could continue carrying out its assigned functions.

“If we want some kind of result, 115,000 euros a year should be allocated to that budgetary institution so that it can continue pursuing those goals,” Kukuraitis said during the meeting.

Prime Minister Mindaugas Sinkevičius proposed approving the government’s conclusion with Kukuraitis’s recommendation included.

Justice Minister Rita Tamašunienė opposed the proposed change to the council’s status. She said it would weaken independent analysis of family policy, reduce the Seimas’s ability to exercise effective oversight, disrupt cooperation between municipalities, ministries and the Seimas, and end the continuity of institutional experience accumulated in recent years.

“In principle, we support preserving this council as a budgetary institution that is significant in the field of family policy,” Tamašunienė said.

She also opposed removing the principle of the complementarity of fatherhood and motherhood from the bill, saying this would conflict with provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Law on the Fundamentals of Protection of the Rights of the Child and the Civil Code.

Tamašunienė proposed rejecting the government’s conclusion or allowing more time to coordinate it. After Kukuraitis offered a compromise on the council’s status, she urged the government to coordinate the final text and return to the issue in a week. The proposal was not approved.

During coordination of the government’s conclusion, the Justice Ministry also opposed removing the principle that support and assistance to families should take into account a child’s natural need to have a father and a mother.

The ministry’s objection was not accepted. The coordination note said the principle was already established in the Law on the Fundamentals of Protection of the Rights of the Child and the Civil Code, making it unnecessary to repeat it.

Social Security and Labour Minister Inga Ruginienė said removing the principle from the Law on Strengthening the Family would not mean abandoning it altogether, as it would remain established in the Civil Code and the Law on the Fundamentals of Protection of the Rights of the Child.

Ruginienė also said the amendments aimed to give greater attention to single parents, including mothers and fathers raising children alone.