Isn’t the requirement to speak the official language discriminatory?

     The protection of the official language has long been recognised as a matter of public interest, and Lithuania’s highest courts have recognised its importance and expressed the view that the official language is a key guarantee of citizens’ equality, as it enables all citizens to communicate with state and local authority institutions on equal terms and to exercise their rights and legitimate interests.

     A person’s ethnicity cannot, either, serve as a basis for that person to demand that the rules arising from the status of the official language should not apply to them. Otherwise, the constitutional principle of the equality of all persons before the law would be violated’ (Constitutional Court ruling of 21 October 1999) .

     The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania has also held that “integration into Lithuanian society and becoming a full member of the Lithuanian state community – a citizen of the Nation – is linked to efforts to learn the official Lithuanian language” (Judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania of 18 June 2013 in Administrative Case No. I-261-16-13).

    Such judicial interpretations lead to the conclusion that persons of other nationalities cannot be subject to exceptional conditions in the field of the protection of the official language, and that it is the duty of the state – that is, public administration bodies – to assist them in integrating into Lithuanian public life.