The Constitutional Court (CC) has returned a request from a group of Seimas members to assess whether the ban on furbearer business is in line with the Constitution's provisions on limiting economic activities. The request can be resubmitted by the initiators.

The parliamentarians' request was rejected because it did not meet the requirements and its authors did not properly substantiate their claim that the legislative procedure was violated in the drafting of the amendments to the ban, the CC said on Thursday.

„Finding that the application did not comply with the requirements of the Constitutional Court Act, the CC returned it to the applicant. According to the law, the return of the request does not deprive the applicant of the right to apply to the CC in the general procedure once the deficiencies have been remedied," the CC said in a statement.

The MPs argued in their appeal that the impact of the ban and its constitutionality had not been adequately substantiated in the drafting of the Amendments to the Law on the Welfare and Protection of Animals, which banned the fur farms. 

According to the CC, the parliamentarians did not provide legal reasons why the law should have been subject to an impact assessment of the scope and nature of the legal regulation they specified, and why it was not suitable for the one carried out during the preparation of the amendments.

„ In this context, the applicant relied on general assertions and assumptions concerning the disproportionality of the impact assessment carried out on the envisaged legal regulation in relation to its consequences, and did not provide legal arguments to justify that the legislative procedure had been infringed in this case by carrying out an impact assessment of the envisaged legal regulation in the nature and scope chosen by the draftsman of the draft legislation," the CCJ said in its report.

The MPs said that the ban is not in line with the provision of Article 46 of the Constitution that economic activities may be restricted to ensure the welfare of the nation. They also argued that game farmers would not be fairly compensated for the seizure of farms, as the compensation provided was not equivalent to the market value of the business being seized.

According to the law, fur farms in Lithuania will cease to exist from 2027. Owners of the farms to be destroyed will be compensated, but entrepreneurs have complained that the payments are too low and do not cover the losses incurred.

Lithuania has become the 20th country in Europe to insure this business.