Search results : 97

The story began in Autumn 2018 when Lietuvos Vyriausybė (the Government of the Republic of Lithuania) decided to charge journalists for the provision of data and information from official state registers. Prior to that date, all the data was freely accessible without payment. Such a decision provoked enormous discontent amongst both journalists and the public. Faced with public pressure, the government was forced to convene a meeting on 3 October 2018 and discuss this matter once again. Information that the meeting had been very heated and that the prime minister had expressed himself in a very...

In a case about hate speech against homosexuals on Facebook, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) delivered an important and well-documented judgment (61 pages). The ECtHR found that the Lithuanian authorities have violated the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) because they had not fulfilled their positive obligations to protect the targeted persons against discrimination (Article 14) and against breach of their privacy (Article 8). The ECtHR also came to the conclusion that Lithuania has not effectively responded to the applicants’ complaints of discrimination on account of...

A recent decision of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) deals with the complaint of a team of four Russian TV journalists who were expelled from Lithuania and banned from re-entering it because they posed a danger to national security. The ECtHR came to the conclusion that the Lithuanian authorities credibly demonstrated that the expulsion and re-entry ban imposed on the Russian journalists were proportionate and necessary in the interests of Lithuania’s national security. Both measures were held not to be in breach of the journalists' right to freedom of expression as guaranteed...

On 4 July 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered a judgment on whether Lithuania’s media authority could impose an obligation on all broadcasters requiring that a UK-based channel could be broadcast in Lithuania only in pay-to-view packages, as it had found that one of its programmes “contained information that incited hatred”. The CJEU held that such a measure did not infringe Article 3(1) of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD), which provides that member states “shall not restrict retransmissions” of broadcasts from another member state. The case concerned...

On 11 December 2018, the Lithuanian Parliament adopted a law on tax incentives for film production in Lithuania. The offers the opportunity to save up to 30% of a film’s production budget spent in Lithuania through the private investment scheme. The new law will apply to the period 2019-2023 and replaces the expired 20% tax incentive scheme that was in effect from 2014 until the end of 2018. According to Lithuanian Film Centre, the previous tax incentive scheme demonstrated positive results - since its introduction in 2014 there has been a rapid growth in the number of foreign film productions;...