On the International Human Rights Daythe Seimas Ombudsmen Augustinas Normantas and Raimondas Šukys met the members of a working group for establishment of a National Human Rights Institution. Parliamentarians Dalia Kuodytė and Marija Aušrinė Pavilionienė have initiated a meeting to discuss progress of establishment of the National Human Rights Institution in Lithuania.

The aim of the meeting was to discuss the strategic policy of the establishment of the National Human Rights Institution as well as necessary amendments to the Law on the Seimas Ombudsmen, which would enable the Seimas Ombudsmen to perform national human rights monitoring to the full extent.

The Seimas Ombudsmen thanked both the head of the Human Right Monitoring Institute Dovilė Šakalienė and the head of the Human Rights Centre Birutė Sabatauskaitė for valuable insights and agreed to discuss necessary amendments of the Law on the Seimas Ombudsmen in the next meeting with human rights organizations. 

“In the process of establishement of the National Human Rights Institution it is extremely important to use the experience of NGOs and for this reason it is necessary to cooperate  with them,” after the meeting with the NGOs emphasised the Seimas Ombudsmen Augustinas Normantas and Raimondas Šukys.

By implementing recommendations of international human rights organizations to strengthen the system of institutional human rights protection in Lithuania, it is intended to establish a  National Human Rights Institution by broadening  the mandate of the Seimas Ombudsmen’s Office.  The  institution would be able to improve protection of human rights, by implementing  international standards and decisions of the European Human Rights Court more efficiently.

The Seimas Ombudsmen’s Office has been participating in the activities of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions since 2012. It became an associate member of the latter network in 2014.