Tomas Vytautas Raskevičius, candidate of the Freedom Party for mayor of the capital, head of the Seimas Human Rights Committee, confirmed that he is seeking partnership regulation at least at the level of the Vilnius municipality.
The parliamentarian says that he is not withdrawing from the party's program provision to legitimize the partnership by law, but The Seimas there are not enough votes for that, so it is proposed to ensure certain rights for unmarried persons living together at the local government level.
"Yesterday, the idea of legalizing the relationship of unmarried couples at the level of self-government was enthusiastically received in the public space. Yes, I formulated and discussed such an idea with my fellow lawyers back in October of last year - the correspondence leaked to the press from that period is authentic. The legalization of partnership or civil union was, is and will be on my political agenda and in my mind," TV Raskevičius announced on Facebook on Thursday.
He asserts that certain guarantees for unmarried couples can be ensured at the level of self-government, because the Civil Code or any other legal act does not detail how the status of a cohabitant is acquired, and there are several dozen laws in Lithuania that provide rights and duties specifically for cohabitants. For example, the Penal Code provides for the right to phone calls and short-term visits to a prisoner's partner, etc.
"I don't see any obstacles why the mayor of a municipality could not approve the procedure according to which two persons who are not related by family ties and live in a specific municipality could not declare their "spouse status". Having a confirmation of "cohabitant status" issued by the municipality, such persons, in their relationship with other state institutions, would already have a document justifying their mutual relationship, which, in my opinion, would be the legal basis for exercising the rights and obligations established by law and applicable to "cohabitants", - says TV Raskevičius.
He also notes that "cohabitation" is not being offered as an alternative to civil union or partnership and is an attempt to address practical issues where "there is no political will to take up and resolve this issue at the national level".
Correspondence released to the media on Wednesday is said to have taken place between Vilnius city municipalities lawyers and MP TV Raskevičius. It asks "whether it is possible to create a mechanism at the municipal level during which the cohabitation status of two persons who have registered their place of residence in the city of Vilnius would be registered".
TV Raskevičius confirmed the authenticity of this correspondence on Thursday, and the outgoing mayor on Wednesday Remigius Šimašius said he was ready to support such an initiative.
R. Šimašius said that TV Raskevičius started to coordinate this possibility in the municipality in the Seimas until now there was no agreement on the partnership institute - the mayor himself insists on the idea of legalizing the partnership at the level of self-government, if it cannot be done in the state, which has been in the works for almost eight years.
Two projects on the relationship of unmarried persons living together are being considered in the Seimas, but the consideration is not included in the agenda in the Seimas because there are not enough votes to approve this initiative of the ruling party.
Currently, partnerships are not legalized in Lithuania, neither for a man and a woman, nor for same-sex couples.
Several previous attempts by liberal politicians to legalize civil partnerships in the Seimas were unsuccessful.
The author is Milena Andrukaitytė
