CONCLUSION ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE ISTANBUL CONVENTION OF THE LITHUANIAN CONSTITUTIONAL COURT: CONTEXT, REASONING, AND LEGAL CONSEQUENCES

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Background: On 14 March 2024, the Lithuanian Constitutional Court issued a conclusion on the constitutionality of certain provisions of the Istanbul Convention, becoming the fourth constitutional court in Eastern and Central Europe to rule on this issue. Thus, this conclusion reflects a broader trend in the region. This article aims to analyse this conclusion and reveal its similarities and differences with decisions made by other constitutional courts in the region on the same matter. To achieve this goal, the following objectives are addressed: 1) to reveal the context in which the Lithuanian Parliament submitted an inquiry to the Constitutional Court on the constitutionality of the Convention and the issues raised in this inquiry; 2) to analyse the arguments of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court in this conclusion; and 3) to reveal the legal consequences of this conclusion and the possible impact of this conclusion on the ratification of this treaty in Lithuania. These issues are examined in the broader context of the judgments of other constitutional courts in the region on the constitutionality of the Istanbul Convention. Methods: To explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of the issue at hand, this article utilises a variety of methods. The document content analysis method was employed to examine relevant normative and jurisprudential research sources, focusing on identifying key terms and phrases within the text and linking them to existing statements in specialised literature. The paper relied heavily on systemic and logical analysis to examine nearly all issues discussed in the article. Comparative analysis was employed to compare the decisions of the constitutional courts on the constitutionality of the Istanbul Convention of other Eastern and Central European countries and the conclusion on this issue adopted by the Lithuanian Constitutional Court. The linguistic and teleological analysis methods were employed to clarify the content of provisions of the legal acts examined in this article, uncovering the true intentions of the creators of these provisions and the meaning of the concepts within these provisions. Results and conclusions: The article concludes that the Lithuanian Parliament's inquiry to the Lithuanian Constitutional Court regarding the constitutionality of the Istanbul Convention reflects a general trend in Eastern and Central Europe, as the Lithuanian Constitutional Court has been asked to address the constitutionality of essentially the same provisions of the Convention as other constitutional courts of the region. In assessing the constitutionality of the Convention's provisions, the Lithuanian Constitutional Court, like the constitutional courts of Latvia and Moldova, focused on the Convention's objective – eradicating violence against women and domestic violence by promoting gender equality. This approach has led to a similarity in the reasoning of these courts. The Lithuanian Constitutional Court became the third constitutional court in the region, which, like those in Latvia and Moldova, did not find the provisions of the Convention unconstitutional. The conclusion of the Lithuanian Constitutional Court has been met with mixed reactions in society, political, and academic circles; therefore, even after the conclusion regarding the constitutionality of the Istanbul Convention, this international treaty has still not been ratified in Lithuania. Nevertheless, the Constitutional Court is the only institution with the power to assess the compatibility of this international treaty with the constitutional provisions, so Parliament can no longer rely on the argument that this Convention is incompatible with the Constitution.