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The Importance of Being Earnest: Spelling of Names, EU Citizenship and Fundamental Rights
journal contribution
posted on 2023-07-26, 14:21 authored by Egle Dagilyte, Adam Lazowski, Panos StasinopoulosNames are central elements of people’s identities: they distinguish them from other individuals and play an important role in human self-determination. Names and their spelling reach, from time to time, national and European courtrooms. The European Union is no exception in this respect, as the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice proves. Unlike the European Court of Human Rights, the Luxembourg court avoids looking at the right to one’s name through the prism of fundamental rights but opts for internal market and EU citizenship reasoning. This article puts into context one of the latest EU citizenship cases on the right to one’s name, originating from the (lack of) ethnic minority rights protection in Lithuania. The Runevič-Vardyn case, in which the Court of Justice was called to balance EU citizens' fundamental rights against national constitutional traditions to protect state language, also highlights the political and diplomatic tensions between Poland and Lithuania – two ‘young’ Member States with their unique post-Soviet history. This is only one of the many examples illustrating the intricate ethnic minority rights issues in many EU bordering Member States, which raises wider questions about the future of European integration. Given the current national reform on the spelling of names in identity documents in Lithuania, it may well be that the change to improve the protection to one’s right to identity can come from within. The authors, however, propose that the Court takes a more coherent fundamental rights and proportionality approach on this matter. Hence, as a way out, they put forward a proposal for inclusive residence-based EU citizenship that is underpinned by the substantive equality of all EU citizens, no matter what their ethnic origin or mother tongue.
History
Refereed
- Yes
Volume
11Publication title
Croatian Yearbook of European Law and PolicyISSN
1845-5662External DOI
Publisher
Katedra za Europsko Javno PravoFile version
- Published version
Language
- eng
Official URL
Legacy posted date
2018-06-14Legacy creation date
2018-06-05Legacy Faculty/School/Department
ARCHIVED Faculty of Arts, Law & Social Sciences (until September 2018)Usage metrics
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