In a recent ruling, the Enlarged Panel of Judges of the Supreme Administrative Court declared that a provision in the Rules for the Registration of Civil Status Records permitting the annulment of a civil status record for reasons not specified in the Civil Code was contrary to the constitutional principle of the rule of law.
The request regarding the legality of such a regulation was submitted in the context of a ReLex case brought by a foreigner seeking to reinstate their marriage record, which had been annulled by the civil registry on the grounds that the applicant was illegally present in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania at the time of the marriage. Pursuant to Article 3.37(2) of the Civil Code, only a court may declare a marriage invalid.
Based on the constitutional doctrine of legal certainty, the applicant claimed in his complaint that he had a legitimate expectation that his marriage would not be dissolved due to an error on the part of the authorities. The Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania has repeatedly stated in its rulings that human rights and freedoms may be restricted under the Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania if the following conditions are met: the restrictions are set out in law addopted by Parliament; they are necessary in a democratic society to protect the rights and freedoms of others, as well as the values enshrined in the Constitution and constitutionally important objectives; they do not negate the nature and essence of rights and freedoms; and the constitutional principle of proportionality is observed. A legal act of lower legal force cannot establish regulations contrary to those established by a legal act of higher force, nor can it compete with them. Failure to comply with this fundamental principle would violate the constitutionally enshrined hierarchy of legal acts and negate the principle of the rule of law.
In its Ruling of 4 June 2025, the Supreme Administrative Court agreed, that the provision of the Rules, i.e. the subordinate legislation, which expands the grounds for annulment of civil status records established by the legislator, the Minister of Justice, inter alia, essentially established legal regulation of relations related to the implementation of human rights, which competes with that established by law, and, inter alia, does not comply with the requirements arising from the constitutional principle of the rule of law (see, for example, the Constitutional Court’s decisions of 5 May 2007, 12 October 2022 and 24 January 2023 ).
In these circumstances the Panel concluded that the Minister of Justice, by establishing an additional ground for annulment of a civil status record, he exceeded his competence and disregarded the obligation arising from the constitutional principle of the rule of law for legislative bodies not to exceed their powers when enacting legislation and to base subordinate legislation on laws. This constituted sufficient grounds for finding that the norm in question was contrary to the constitutional principle of the rule of law.
It is worth noting in the context of the present case that the regulation thus annuled has been introduced in December 2022 along with many other questionable human rights limitations aimed to curb illegal migration.
