An open-access article titled “Can a Referendum Reverse Constitutional Meaning? Constitutional Adjudication, Family Rights and the Limits of Constitutional Amendment in Lithuania” by Dr. Dovilė Pūraitė-Andrikienė and Dr. Agnė Juškevičiūtė-Vilienė, researchers at the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences (LCSS), has been published in the international academic journal “Laws”. The article examines a proposal by a group of Lithuanian parliamentarians to hold an advisory referendum concerning an amendment to Article 38 of the Constitution. The proposed amendment would link the constitutional concept of family exclusively to marriage between a man and a woman, motherhood and fatherhood.

The authors ask what limits the Constitutional Court’s interpretation of family and the protection of fundamental rights place on such an initiative. They argue that the proposed amendment would seek to reverse the understanding of family developed in the Court’s case law. The article considers the substantive limits on constitutional amendments, legal certainty, Lithuania’s obligations under the ECHR and EU law, the case law of the ECtHR and CJEU, and comparative constitutional practice. It emphasises the role of constitutional courts in safeguarding fundamental rights when constitutional change is pursued through referendums.

The full open-access article can be found here: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-471X/15/5/122