Lithuanian court upholds bilingual village signs in Vilnius district

The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania (LVAT) has issued a final, non-appealable ruling regarding bilingual village name signs in the Vilnius district. The decision effectively ends a three-year dispute concerning the villages of Bieliškių and Ažulaukės.

The conflict began in May 2023 when the State Language Inspectorate (VKI) ordered the Vilnius District Municipality to remove Polish inscriptions—‘w. Bieliszki’ and ‘Orzełówka’—from the village signs, mandating that public inscriptions only use the state language. The municipality, led by Mayor Robert Duchnevičius, challenged the order.

Following a series of legal challenges, the LVAT largely upheld a previous ruling that the Inspectorate's order was unlawful. The court's decision only modified the previous judgment regarding legal costs, canceling the requirement for the municipality to pay 12,346 euros in litigation expenses to the Inspectorate. The bilingual signs are permitted to remain.