In the Court’s view, the refusal to change the letter of the applicant’s surname from “V” to “W” in the marriage certificate “violates the applicant’s right to have her own surname and unjustifiably restricts her right to respect for her private and family life and is discriminatory against her”

On 24 March 2021, the District Court of Vilnius City issued a decision that obliged the Civil Registry Office (CMS) to change the Lithuanian citizen’s pre-marital surname to her husband’s original surname “Williams” and to issue a new marriage record. The decision has already become final. 

The documents in the case file showed that the applicant and a British national got married in the United Kingdom in 2017. In the marriage certificate of 2018, which was drafted in the Šiauliai CMS, the applicant’s surname appears different from the one she currently uses. The reason for this is that, when registering her marriage with the Šiauliai CMS, she was informed that she will not be given a spouse’s surname with a “W” (“Williams”) because there is no provision for this in the laws on civil status registration in Lithuania. CMS stated that her surname could be in the form “Villiams” and that this would be considered a graphic version of the surname “Williams”. The applicant was not happy with this proposal and decided to keep the surname she had from her previous marriage. Somewhat later, the applicant learned that the practice of giving names with non-Lithuanian letters in Lithuania was developing. She therefore decided to submit a request to Vilnius CMS to change her surname carried from a previous marriage to “Williams”. Vilnius CMS, however, in its 2020 decision, refused to grant the applicant’s request. CMS explained this decision by stating that under the current rules of Lithuanian spelling, the letter “W” shall be written as “V”. 

The court noted that the refusal of the CMS met the formal requirements of the applicable legislation. According to Article 15 of the Law on the State Language of the Republic of Lithuania and paragraph 23 of the Rules on the Registration of Civil Status Acts, approved by Order of the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania of 28 December 2016 No. 1R-334, records of civil status shall be made in Lithuanian. Since the Lithuanian language does not contain the letter “W”, the Vilnius CMS rightly noted in the contested application that this letter should be replaced by the letter “V” when transcribing the applicant’s surname. However, in the Court’s view, such a decision of the CMS violates the applicant’s right to have her own surname, as well as unreasonably restricts her right to privacy of family life and discriminates against her.  

The Court noted that, according to the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (“the Court of Justice”), a person’s name is one of the constituent elements of his or her identity and private life which are protected under Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (“the Charter”) and Article 8 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Although Article 7 of the Charter does not explicitly refer to a person’s name and surname, it is no less important for a person’s private and family life as it is a means of identifying a person and assigning him to a particular family (see, for example, the judgment of the Court of Justice of 12 May 2011 in Case C-391/09, Runevič-Vardyn and Wardyn). 

In its case-law, the Court of Justice has held that a refusal to amend the names and surnames of a national of a Member State or to recognise names and surnames acquired in another Member State may be considered as a restriction of the freedoms recognised in the Article 21 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union where that refusal is liable to cause serious inconvenience to that person at administrative, professional and personal levels.

In the current case, it has been found that the applicant currently lives with her spouse in the United Kingdom, where she introduces herself under the surname “Williams”. The same surname also appears on her driving licence. The applicant was determined to be entitled to use her spouse’s surname in Lithuania without the need to modify it. According to the applicant, the current situation made her feel as if she had two personalities – in the United Kingdom she was recognised as “Williams” and in Lithuania as “Vidginienė”. In the Court’s view, the circumstances mentioned by the applicant give rise to the conclusion that the contested decision of the Vilnius CMS may cause her personal and other inconveniences in line with the criteria set out in the case-law of the Court of Justice.  

The European Foundation of Human Rights (EFHR), which provided the applicant with all the necessary legal assistance in the present case, has been emphasising for a long time that every person has the right to have their surname recorded in its original form and to have it officially recognised as part of their identity. Registration of the surname in its original form should be recognised by international institutions as an integral part of fundamental human rights, which protects people from unlawful interference in their private lives.

Furthermore, the data from the Register of Residents of the Republic of Lithuania submitted to the case showed that on 10 June 2019 there were 111 citizens of the Republic of Lithuania who had surnames with the letter “W” written in their valid passports issued by the Republic of Lithuania. Therefore, refusal to grant the applicant’s application would, inter alia, lead to unjustified discrimination against her. 

It should be noted that both the Vilnius CMS and the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language did not stand against the granting of the request made in this case. The Commission stated that in personal documents the surnames of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania should be written using Lithuanian letters, but some exceptions are possible, taking into account the needs of modern society. One of them is the surnames of female citizens of the Republic of Lithuania who married foreigners and took their surnames.  

EFHR provides legal assistance to people facing the problem of the original spelling of their names and surnames in personal documents. Legal assistance is provided by EFHR lawyers and attorneys from well-known law firms cooperating with the Foundation. Legal assistance includes advice, drafting of documents and representation in courts. If you are interested, please register by email info@efhr.eu , phone + (370) 691 50 822.