Articles 25 and 44 of the Lithuanian Constitution protect the freedom of expression (see chapter 4.1.1). Article 37 of the Constitution protects the rights of national minorities: “Citizens who belong to ethnic communities shall have the right to foster their language, culture, and customs.”
In 2015, amendments to the Criminal Code of the Republic of Lithuania, which decriminalised the offence of private persons and public officials, came into force. According to the Lithuanian Human Rights Monitoring Institute, this was a significant step in the field of freedom of expression, because it ensures that exercising this freedom will not lead to disproportionately applied criminal liability. After the decriminalisation of the offence, persons still have the possibility to defend their honour and dignity in civil courts.
The self-regulating authorities of journalists, public relations specialists and advertisers supervise limits of freedom of expression and other ethical issues of public communication. The self-regulatory body of media is the Association of Ethics in the Provision of Information to the Public. The stakeholders of the Association are public information producers, disseminators, journalists and other participants of the media sector, which seeks to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Code of Ethics in Providing Information to the Public foster principles of ethics in the provision of information to the public in public information activities and raise public awareness for the evaluation of public information processes and the use of public information.
The official institution of supervision of journalist ethics established by the Seimas is the Office of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics. The functions of the Inspector of Journalist Ethics are: investigate the complaints (applications) of the persons concerned whose honour and dignity have been degraded in the media; examine the complaints (applications) of the persons concerned in relation to violation of their right to protection of privacy or processing of their personal data in the media; submit proposals to the Seimas and other state institutions for improving the Law on the Provision of Information to the Public and other laws and legal acts regulating the information policy; etc.
Despite the activity of the above-mentioned institutions related to cultural rights and ethics, some cultural events during the last years raised wide public discussions and revealed a rather narrow understanding of freedom of expression in Lithuania (see Human Rights Monitoring Institute report). For example, in 2014, the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania upheld a fine imposed on the company of designer Robertas Kalinkinas for his advertisement campaign that had used the visual images of a young woman and a man who were stylised like Jesus and Mary. The fine was imposed by the State Consumer Rights Protection Service, deciding that the advertisement violated the provisions of the Law on Advertising on public morality. In the same year, a pre-trial investigation was launched against the comedian Whydotas, who posted a song on his YouTube channel called “Devil, please” which contained a verse “Devil, please take my soul, and let me bash children’s heads into the wall”. The author was suspected of inciting violence against a social group – children. Despite the song being obviously intended to be humorous and no actual aim to incite violence being present, Whydotas and other creators of the song were only acquitted on appeal, after almost 2 years of investigation and litigation. In 2018, the Parliament’s Commission of Freedom Fights appealed to the prosecutor’s office to open a pre-trial investigation against writer M. Ivaškevičius regarding his public support for international crimes committed by the USSR or Nazi Germany against the Republic of Lithuania or its inhabitants. According to the applicants, the writer had committed these crimes in the novel “Greens” while assessing Lithuania’s resistance to the occupation and depicting the partisan struggle, its main leader, and other partisans.
In general, these events show that even though freedom of expression and the importance of its protection are acknowledged at the highest level in Lithuania, more extreme forms of expression received disproportionate prohibitions and punishment-based responses from the authorities. Performers, designers, advertisers, writers, and social action initiators had to defend their freedom of expression in courts, and these cases demonstrated that law enforcement authorities are not always able to distinguish permissible self-expression, criticism, or black humour from hate speech, bullying or contempt.
In 2022, with the outbreak of the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation into Ukraine, state institutions took measures to protect society from the spread of disinformation, information manipulation, and war propaganda. This led to the introduction of certain restrictions aimed at reducing the impact of disinformation on society. As a result of these measures, freedom of expression was restricted for individuals who publicly supported Russia’s unlawful actions. On 22 September 2022, the Seimas adopted amendments to the Law on Provision of Information to the Public, banning the retransmission and/or online distribution of radio and television programmes, as well as individual broadcasts, established, directly or indirectly owned, controlled or financed by the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. The aim of this ban was to reduce the potential spread of disinformation in the country and thus block channels and narratives inciting hostility. It should also be noted that the Government prohibited rallies and marches in support of Russia’s war in Ukraine for as long as the state of emergency remains in force. On 19 April, the Government adopted legal amendments prohibiting the public use, during the state of emergency, of symbols considered to express support for Russia’s war, such as the letters “V” and “Z”.
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