Communicated on 16 December 2014

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 43062/08 Lina WAHL against Lithuania lodged on 24 July 2008

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Mrs Lina Wahl, is a Lith uanian citizen, who was born in 1963. She lives in Granite Bay , United States .

A. The circumstances of the case

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.

In 2008 the applicant married a citizen of the United States of America, T.S. Wahl.

She asked the Lithuanian authorities to issue her with a marriage certificate and a Lithuanian passport, indicating her married name as “Wahl”.

In April 2008 the Vilnius city municipal authorities issued the applicant with a marriage certificate. In May 2008 the Migration Department issued the applicant a Lithuanian passport. Both documents indicate the applicant ’ s married name as “ Vahl ”.

The applicant then asked those two authorities to correct the spelling of her family name. Her requests were refused on the ground that Lithuanian legislation did not allow the letter “W” to be written in the Lithuanian passport (see Relevant domestic law, below).

In June 2008 the applicant attempted to start administrative court proceedings, asking the court to allow her to keep her husband ’ s name in the Lithuanian documents. She relied on Article 8 of the Convention. The applicant named the Seimas (the Lithuanian Parliament) as the defendant in the case. She explained that neither the Vilnius city municipality nor the Migration Department had competence to amend the legislation.

By a ruling of 26 June 2008 the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court refused to admit her complaint for examination. The court noted that the applicant had not paid the court fee. She also had to explain better which institution had adopted an act that breached her rights, and how.

According to the latest document in the Court ’ s possession as regards the applicant ’ s case, on 14 July 2008 she reiterated her written complaint to the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court, this time identifying the Vilnius city municipality and the Migration Department as defendants. The applicant argued that different spelling of her and her husband ’ s family names would cause them inconvenience in their family life.

B. Relevant domestic law and practice

Under Article 14 of the Lithuanian Constitution, the State language is Lithuanian.

On 31 January 1991 the Supreme Council of the Republic of Lithuania passed a Resolution “On Writing of Names and Family Names in Passports of Citizens of the Republic of Lithuania”. The Resolution held:

“1. In the passport of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania the names and family names shall be written in Lithuanian letters according to the Lithuanian entries in existing passports or other personal documents on the basis whereof the passport is issued.

2. In the issued passports of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania the names and family names of individuals of non-Lithuanian nationality shall be written in Lithuanian letters. Under a citizen ’ s written request of established form, his name and family name shall be written:

(a) according to the pronunciation and without conforming to the grammatical rules (without Lithuanian inflexions)

or

(b) according to the pronunciation and conforming to the grammatical rules (by adding Lithuanian inflexions).”

By a Ruling of 21 October 1999, the Constitutional Court held that the above legislation was in compliance with the Constitution. Taking into account the fact that the passport of the Lithuanian citizen was an official document certifying a permanent legal link between an individual and the State, that is, the citizenship of an individual, and the fact that citizenship relations belonged to the sphere of public life of the State, the name and family name of an individual had to be written in the State language, that is, in Lithuanian. Otherwise, the constitutional status of the State language would be denied. The Constitutional Court also noted that the sphere of compulsory use of the State language was the public life of Lithuania. Thus, it was not compulsory in private life where persons use the language chosen by them. The Resolution of the Supreme Council did not regulate private life but merely determined writing of names and family names in the passports of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania. Therefore, there were no grounds to maintain that the Resolution of the Supreme Council contradicted Article 22 of the Constitution, which protected the right to respect for family life.

On 6 November 2009 the Constitutional Court, upon the request by the Seimas , interpreted its earlier ruling of 1999, and answered the Seimas ’ hypothetical question whether, if a citizen so wished, his or her name or family name could be transcribed in non-Lithuanian alphabet letters in the “other remarks section ( kit ų įrašų skyrius )” of his or her Lithuanian passport. The Constitutional Court held that it was within the discretionary powers of the Seimas to establish that a person ’ s name and family name could be transcribed in non-Lithuanian alphabet letters in the “other remarks section” of the Lithuanian passport. Should the Seimas choose to provide for such a possibility, it had to adopt appropriate legislation specifying the basis and criteria for such transcriptions. Even so, the Seimas should take into account the fact that Lithuanian language, as absolute majority of other European languages, is based on Latin alphabet. In any case, the main page of the passport would still contain the citizen ’ s name and family name in Lithuanian letters. This would not be in breach of the constitutional principle that the State language is Lithuanian.

On 17 July 2013 the Supreme Court decided an appeal on points of law in case no. 3K-3-392/2013 brought by a Lithuanian citizen, J.V., who in 2008 had married an Austrian citizen, F.A.W. The Lithuanian authorities issued J. with Lithuanian documents stating that her married family name was “V.”, but not “W.” The Lithuanian courts refused J.V. ’ s request that her family name be corrected. The Supreme Court had due regard to the Constitutional Court ’ s interpretation of 6 November 2009. The Supreme Court nevertheless observed that at the date of its decision no legal mechanism had been set up for writing a person ’ s name with non-Lithuanian alphabet letters (“W”, in that case) in the “other remarks section” of the Lithuanian passport. Accordingly, in the absence of such legal regulation, it was not possible to grant, by a court decision, a person ’ s request to have her name written in non-Lithuanian alphabet symbols. On the facts of that case the civil court also found that J. had failed to prove that her married family name written as “V.” had caused her serious disadvantage.

COMPLAINT

Under Article 8 of the Convention the applicant complains that the distortion of the written form of her married name in her Lithuanian passport and marriage certificate constitutes an unjustified and disproportionate interference with the exercise of her right to respect for her private and family life . She is dissatisfied that the Seimas has not taken steps to amend Lithuanian legislation to allow her name be written as “Wahl”.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Has there been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention on account of the fact that the applicant is not able to have her family name written as “Wahl” in her official Lithuanian documents, in particular, in her Lithuanian passport and her Lithuanian marriage certificate (see Mentzen v. Latvia ( dec. ), no. 71074/01 , ECHR 2004-XII )?

2. The Government are requested to describe developments in Lithuanian law, as of 1990, as concerns possibility to write a person ’ s name or family name, containing letters not present in the Lithuanian alphabet, in the Lithuanian passport and/or other official documents.

3. The applicant is requested to specify which concrete difficulties (on the basis of which she has lodged her application with the Court) she has faced because her name in Lithuanian documents is written as “ Vahl ”.