An amendment registered in the Seimas to change the term “invalidity” in the Constitution to “disability”

Parliamentarians note that Article 52 of the Constitution now uses the derogatory and insulting term disability to describe people with disabilities.

“In the Soviet Union, calling a person disabled was legal and normal. Today in Lithuania, the concept of disability has acquired a strong negative connotation – a person is as if classified as unfit”, says the explanatory note of the project.

The amendment to the Constitution was prepared by Monika Ošmianskienė, chairperson of the Seimas Commission for the Rights of the Disabled, representative of the Freedom faction, and several dozen parliamentarians belonging to different factions.

A similar project has been considered in the Seimas, but after the terminology has changed again, the amendment has been re-registered, because the wording of the constitutional amendment that has been considered in the Seimas cannot be changed in principle.

“I had registered an amendment using the word ‘disability’, but during that time a new Law on the Integration of People with Disabilities was adopted, in which the concept of ‘disability’ is replaced by the concept of ‘disability’. Realizing that the Constitution should not be changed often, I prepared a new draft”, explained M. Ošmianskienė.

The current version of the Constitution contains the provision that “the state guarantees the right of citizens to receive old-age and disability pensions, social support in the event of unemployment, illness, widowhood and other cases provided for by law.”

In the draft that was discussed, the word “invalidity” was changed to “disability” pensions, and in the latest version – to “disabilities”.