The bilateral conference of the Constitutional Courts of Lithuania and Latvia has addressed particularities in the interpretation of freedom of expression of convictions and freedom of information in constitutional jurisprudence
On 18 June, the Constitutional Court of Lithuania organised the XVIII bilateral conference of the Constitutional Courts of Lithuania and Latvia in Vilnius.
The friendship between the Constitutional Courts of Lithuania and Latvia started in 1996, when the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia was established. From 2000, work experience was shared during the meetings of judges of both Constitutional Courts and, since 2002, annual bilateral conferences have been organised. These meetings and conferences have served as platforms to exchange the accumulated experience, address the topical questions of constitutional jurisprudence, explore ways to solve issues arising in constitutional justice cases, and discuss the constitutional consequences of the adopted decisions. Bilateral conferences are held by both Courts in turn annually in Vilnius and Riga.
At the Conference, the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania was represented by President Gintaras Goda and Judges Tomas Davulis, Aurelijus Gutauskas, Giedrė Lastauskienė, Vytautas Mizaras, Algis Norkūnas, Daiva Petrylaitė, Janina Stripeikienė, and Stasys Šedbaras. The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia was represented by President Irēna Kucina, Vice President Anita Rodiņa, Judges Jautrīte Briede, Juris Juriss, and Mārtiņš Mits, as well as Head of Administration Marika Laizāne-Jurkāne, Adviser to the President Andrejs Stupins-Jēgers, and Head of the Legal Department Kristaps Tamužs.
The judges of the Constitutional Courts of Lithuania and Latvia discussed particularities in the interpretation of freedom of expression of convictions and freedom of information in constitutional jurisprudence, addressed the protection of human rights in the criminal justice system, and overviewed the recent case law developed by both Courts.
In his welcome address to the participants of the Conference, the President of the Constitutional Court, Gintaras Goda, was pleased to note that, meeting already for the eighteenth time, the judges of both Courts consistently find matters for discussion and opportunities to learn from one another.
“Last year, we adopted more rulings than in the preceding year and were even stricter – in two-thirds of the rulings, we found a conflict with the Constitution. It must be noted that the rulings concerning freedom of expression of convictions and freedom of information, which ensure the protection of individuals across various spheres of social life, invariably attract public attention, give rise to political debate, and elicit differing assessments. However, we understand that the world is changing and the protection of human rights and freedoms is a never-ending process. Therefore, our task is to act without reducing the standards of human rights protection,” Gintaras Goda said.
In her opening speech, the President of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Latvia, Irēna Kucina, emphasised that the joint voice of the two Courts in the international space confirmed their strong commitment to defend resilience of the rule of law and democracy, national and regional security.
“Our courts are small, different, and, at first glance, seem to be reviewing different cases. However, our close friendship and the bilateral and trilateral Baltic dialogue, which functions as clockwork, is the key that helps us to ascertain, every time, how conceptually similar our thinking is, that the matters we are dealing with are equally important, and how unifying the values that we defend are. This meeting is not only a possibility to share experience and judicature, but also to reinforce our unity in these difficult times – before challenging international fora, ahead of us in the current and the coming year, congresses of the global and European judicial organisations,” the President of the Constitutional Court of Latvia emphasised.
At the first session of the Conference, in his presentation “Interpretation of freedom of expression and information in constitutional jurisprudence”, Judge Vytautas Mizaras underlined that freedom of expression and freedom of information are interrelated – the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information enables individuals to exercise their other rights and freedoms.
“Thus, these related freedoms are often also interpreted together and remain relevant in many respects, especially in the light of current information technologies and the changed geopolitical situation. A large amount of diverse information, including disinformation and dangerous forms of hate speech, can be rapidly and widely disseminated on the internet and via social networks, and this may pose a threat to the foundations of democracy. For constitutional courts faced with these issues in constitutional justice cases, it is essential to constitutionally ensure freedoms of expression and information, as well as their limits and their balance with other rights and public interests.
In the course of interpreting the related constitutional freedoms of expression and information, the official constitutional doctrine developed in the previous rulings of the Constitutional Court is continually supplemented with new elements. The path of interpretation taken allows for the defence and protection of the values enshrined in the Constitution, the maintenance of their balance, and the fulfilment of the aspirations of the Lithuanian people, as declared in the Constitution, for an open, just, and harmonious civil society and a state under the rule of law, upon which the Constitution is founded,” Vytautas Mizaras said.
In his presentation on the same topic, Judge Mārtiņš Mits of the Constitutional Court of Latvia stressed: “In a democratic state governed by the rule of law, the scope of the freedom of expression and the possibilities of restricting it must be established by interpreting, as harmoniously as possible, the provisions of the Constitution in conjunction with international and European law, general legal principles, as well as by appropriately considering the current geopolitical context.”
At the second session, addressing the protection of human rights in the criminal justice system, Judge Aurelijus Gutauskas pointed out that, although the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania receives comparatively fewer petitions relating to the areas of criminal law than those of civil or administrative law, such petitions are, nevertheless, filed by individual petitioners and state institutions with the right to apply to the Constitutional Court.
“During 2024–2025, the Constitutional Court examined three petitions and accepted for consideration three more petitions related to criminal law. The case law confirms that the guarantees of the protection of human dignity, private life, equality, and other individual rights, also the guarantees of their judicial defence, as well as the constitutional principle of a state under the rule of law, are those constitutional imperatives and guidelines for lawmaking that the Lithuanian criminal justice system is oriented towards and must adhere to. Undoubtedly, the cases examined by the Constitutional Court contribute to its improvement,” Judge Aurelijus Gutauskas noted.
Photo: Adom Brazdilis
