Vėl antikonstitucinis įstatymo projektas

324 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 ON THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL DRAFT LAW Three and a half years ago, a draft law on names and surnames of the Republic of Lithuania was submitted to the Seimas. When it became clear that the draft contradicts the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania and the interpretation of the Constitutional Court regarding the spelling of names and surnames in the passport of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania, the Seimas did not consider the draft*.1 It was decided to appeal to the Constitutional Court again. He reiterated the principle that the name and surname in the passport must be written in the state language, and in other languages they can be entered on other pages of the entries. Following this decision of the Constitutional Court, the Government of the Republic of Lithuania prepared and submitted to the Seimas a draft law on the spelling of names and surnames of the Republic of Lithuania in documents instead of the previous draft. The new draft eliminated some shortcomings of the previous one: the writing of names and surnames in documents is clearly distinguished from their writing in other areas; starts the order of writing names and surnames from the basic principle – to write them in Lithuanian characters; lacks many of the side effects of the previous project. However, the new draft, like the previous one, contradicts the Constitution and the ruling of the Constitutional Court. Even worse, it was prepared after the Constitutional Court’s repeated interpretation. Thus, the drafters of the bill, and the Government in submitting it to the Seimas, deliberately violate Lithuanian laws and the principles of the rule of law. In order to justify and theoretically justify such work, the project organizers have created a strange preamble. It is not necessary for such a law, or at least it should be different. The current one is superficial and completely biased. There is no reference to the Constitution, the state language or Lithuanian personal names. Not less than three points out of four teach theories about persons from other countries, personal names of other languages and emphatically contrast them with Lithuanian personal names. It is not necessary to say that the text is not original, but that it is not a copy of the original, but a copy of the original. On the Bill of Names and Surnames. – Literatūra ir menas, 2007, July 20; Gimtoji kalba, 2007, No. 7, pp. 15–18; P r a n a s K n i ū k š t a. Will the Seimas defend the Lithuanian language? – Literature and Art, 2009, June 19. Another unconstitutional draft law 325 states that personal names "have no lexical meaning, so personal names of one language are not considered part of the system of another language that uses them". A personal noun may be considered as a kind of personal sign, but it also has a linguistic form. It must be clearly recognized that personal names are not only a matter of law, but also of language. Whether or not a person has a lexical meaning is not very important. In the language system, words are distinguished not by lexical meanings, but by morphological and phonetic characteristics. The lexical or semantic meaning of a noun does not prevent it from moving from one language to another. As an excuse and argument, the authors of the project use the 1938 Surnames Act. No other document is mentioned in the preamble, mentioning only the law and only its paragraph on the writing of non-Lithuanian surnames in non-Lithuanian characters. But that is not the purpose of the law. It regulated the change and correction of Lithuanian surnames, and the paragraph about the spelling of non-Lithuanian surnames was artificially added and separated from the whole law. It is possible that this was a reaction to Poland’s ultimatum of 1938 and its demands to guarantee the rights of Poles in Lithuania. Such suspicions arise also because we hear similar demands now, the project organizers do not name them, but docilely execute them. But there are also differences. The 1938 law does not say whether the non-Lithuanian persons mentioned are Lithuanian citizens and where their surnames may be written in non-Lithuanian characters, and the authors of the new draft transfer this principle without ceremonies to the citizens of the Republic of Lithuania and the writing of their names in documents. The fifth paragraph of the third article of the draft states: “The name and surname of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania belonging to a national minority, based on the source of the document, shall be written in non-Lithuanian characters based on Latin, if the alphabet of the language of that national minority is based on Latin and if a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania has submitted a request”. This is the point of the draft that specifically and drastically conflicts with the Constitution of Lithuania and the Constitutional Court’s decision. The anti-constitutional provisions of the draft also penetrate in other ways. Non-Lithuanian characters are offered to write the surnames of spouses of citizens of non-Lithuanian nationality, and if someone wants Lithuanian characters, a separate request is required. There is no mention of writing the names and surnames of citizens of non-Lithuanian nationality in Lithuanian characters. And quite trendy – the point about the spelling of names and surnames of citizens belonging to national minorities is moved after the personal names of citizens of foreign countries. They want to use them as a cover and separate themselves as far as possible from the Lithuanian language and Lithuanian scripts. 326 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 It must be said here that Lithuanian citizens of non-Lithuanian nationality cannot be equated with citizens of other countries. Personal names of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania are legalized and spelled in accordance with Lithuanian laws, including the State Language Act. The most important principles of spelling names and surnames have been established by the Decision of the Supreme Council of 31 January 1991 “On the spelling of names and surnames in the passport of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania”. Names of persons of non-Lithuanian nationality are discussed in a separate paragraph: “Names and surnames of persons of non-Lithuanian nationality in the passport of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania shall be written in Lithuanian characters”. This principle has been applied for almost 20 years, not only to passports but also to other documents. The Constitutional Court has confirmed that it complies with the Constitution. Others are names of citizens of other countries. They are legalised in accordance with the laws of the country concerned and formalised in accordance with the language requirements of that country. In official use they are valid in all countries, including ours, as they are legalized. Therefore, the provision of the draft that the names and surnames of foreign nationals, “recorded in non-Lithuanian Latin characters in the source of the document, are written in Latin characters for reference” is legally justified. This does not contradict either the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania or the decision of the Constitutional Court, since that decision refers to the spelling of the names and surnames of Lithuanian citizens in Lithuanian alphabets. The decision of the Supreme Council of 1991 stipulated that the surnames of citizens of other states may be written in non-Lithuanian. The third point allowed the names of persons who had the nationality of another state to be written according to the passport of the citizen of that state or the equivalent document. However, the point of the current draft on the names and surnames of foreigners should be clarified because stateless persons, foreigners who have acquired the citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania, spouses and children of foreign citizens are included with foreign citizens. They are not exactly the same and should not be measured in bulk with the same measures. For example, a stateless person may be a permanent resident of Lithuania or a person who has been temporarily in Lithuania for some reason – the former can be compared with Lithuanian citizens, the latter – with foreigners. A Lithuanian citizen who has married a foreigner does not become a foreigner by that fact alone. For such citizens of the Republic of Lithuania, the general principle of writing names and surnames in Lithuanian alphabet Again, unconstitutional Bill 327, on the other hand, when taking the surname of a citizen of another state, the spouse gets a common family name, and it is related to the principles of the use and spelling of foreign surnames. They may also apply to a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania who has taken the surname of a foreigner, especially if the marriage was concluded and the person lives outside Lithuania. Legally, such surnames are equivalent to foreign surnames and may be subject to the principle of writing foreign surnames in non-Lithuanian characters. There are two opposite, but legally both justified principles, so the law may allow such surnames to be written optionally – in Lithuanian characters or in the same characters as the spouse’s surname. The names and surnames of their children may also be written in double. There should be a separate provision for such cases. But the biggest problem of the draft is its unconstitutional fifth paragraph of Article 3, which intends to deny the principle of writing the names and surnames of Lithuanian citizens belonging to national minorities in Lithuanian characters. This has already been attempted in the 2007 draft, but such intentions have failed. The organizers of the new project again play hide and seek and throw out the scrap goods like nowhere else. applies in the first place. But the law, of course, is necessary. But it is not necessary to destroy what has been created and established. It is possible to take a Supreme Council Decree, confirm its principles and main points, supplement the existing Decree in the light of new circumstances – but without changing the most important principles – and formalize the document as a law. POST SCRIPTUM The main articles of the law can be formulated briefly and simply: Article A. Write your name and surname (1) The names and surnames of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania, based on the source of the document, shall be written in Lithuanian characters in personal or other documents drawn up and issued by the competent authorities, with the exception of point 2 of Article B. 2. Names and surnames of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian nationality shall be written in documents according to pronunciation in 328 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 authentic forms of personal names. The name and surname may be written ungrammatical (without endings) or grammatical (with endings) at the request of the person. Article B. Transliteration of the name 1. Names and surnames of foreign nationals, which are entered in non-Lithuanian Latin characters in the source document, shall be written in Latin characters. For technical reasons, the name and surname may be written without diacritics. (2) The name and surname of a citizen of the Republic of Lithuania who has married a citizen of a foreign state and has taken his or her surname shall be written in Lithuanian characters or in the same Latin characters as the spouse’s surname, at the choice of the person. The names and surnames of the children of these persons are also written in dual form, in Lithuanian or other Latin-based characters. 3. Names and surnames entered in non-Latin characters in the source document shall be transliterated into Lithuanian characters according to pronunciation. PRANAS KNIŪKŠTA Institute of Lithuanian Language P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania