Constitutional Court
14 March 2024
No KT24-I1/2024
Facts
Seimas has requested the Constitutional Court to assess the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention).
Request
The applicant's doubts about the Convention are based on the fact that the Convention's use of the term "gender" threatens the Lithuanian language, as the provisions of the Convention presuppose gender-neutral language in the public sphere, and the Lithuanian language is not gender neutral. The applicant also points out that "the inherent differences between men and women are a given on which the family and society are based", and that the provisions of the Convention therefore negate the notion of the family, according to which only men and/or women are considered to be members of the family, and that marriage is only between a man and a woman in the biological, but not in the social, aspect.
Furthermore, according to the applicant, the Convention's obligation to introduce teaching on non-stereotypical gender roles in the curricula of all levels of formal education would deny a section of the population the right to be guided by their concept of gender and to bring up their children according to that concept, while a different worldview would be taught in education institutions, where education is compulsory under the Constitution.
Court‘s ruling
The Conclusion notes that the main objective of the Convention is to protect women from all forms of violence, to prevent violence against women and domestic violence, and to prosecute perpetrators. The Court emphasised that all the provisions of the Convention, including those which gave rise to the applicant's doubts, must be interpreted in the light of those objectives.
Turning to the concept of gender, the Court pointed out that the Convention contains provisions implying that it is intended to combat violence which may be provoked by the roles, behaviour, activities or characteristics normally attributed to women. These provisions do not negate the binary (female and male) concept of gender (sex). Nor does the Convention imply the need to establish new rules for the national language.
The Court noted that gender-based violence not only violates the inviolability and dignity of the person guaranteed by the Constitution but is also a form of discrimination based on sex and prohibited by the Constitution. The Convention does not impose an obligation on the State to recognise families other than those provided for in the Constitution or to change the constitutional concept of marriage.
The Court also noted that the State has a duty to take measures to reduce incidents of gender-based violence. It also noted that the purpose of education and training institutions is to show a worldview based on constitutional values and to reduce society's tolerance of violence. The mere fact that, under the Convention, education institutions would provide certain information to pupils, which would be made compulsory for all persons attending, did not mean that parents did not have the right to educate their children at home in accordance with their own beliefs.
The Court held that both the Convention, which is aimed at combating violence against women and domestic violence by promoting real equality of women and men as a prerequisite for the reduction of violence against women, and the Constitution and its imperatives of the inviolability of the person, the prohibition of degradation of human dignity, and the prohibition of discrimination in all its forms, pursue the same objectives. The Convention does not contain any provisions which are contrary to the Constitution.