Freedom and Justice ( lt, Laisvė ir Teisingumas, LT), known until 6 June 2020 as the Lithuanian Freedom Union (Liberals) ( lt, Lietuvos Laisvės Sąjunga (Liberalai)), is a

conservative liberal Conservative liberalism or right-liberalism is a variant of liberalism, combining liberal values and policies with Conservatism, conservative stances, or simply representing the right-wing of the liberal movement.Michael Gallagher (academic), M ...

political party in Lithuania. It holds

soft eurosceptic Euroscepticism, also spelled as Euroskepticism or EU-scepticism, is a political position involving criticism of the European Union (EU) and European integration. It ranges from those who oppose some EU institutions and policies, and seek refor ...

views.

History

The party was originally founded on 12 July 2014, when the Liberal and Centre Union (LiCS) merged with YES. YES leader

Artūras Zuokas Artūras Zuokas (born 21 February 1968) is a Lithuanian politician. He is the Chairman of the political party Lithuanian Freedom Union. He was the Mayor of Vilnius from 2000 to 2007 and again from 2011 to 2015. From 2008 to 2009 he was a member ...

became a leader of newly formed party. In 2015 Lithuanian municipal election the party won 4.91 per cent of votes. Its best performance was in northeast of Lithuania. In

2016 Lithuanian parliamentary election Parliamentary elections were held in Lithuania on 9 and 23 October 2016 to elect the 141 members of the Seimas. 71 were elected in single-member constituencies using the two-round system, and the remaining 70 in a single nationwide constituency u ...

the party won 2.16 per cent of votes in multi-member constituency. After poor results of 2019 European Parliament elections, Lithuanian Freedom Union (Liberals),

Order and Justice Order, ORDER or Orders may refer to: * Categorization, the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated, and understood * Heterarchy, a system of organization wherein the elements have the potential to be ranked a number of d ...

and public election committee "Strong Lithuania in United Europe" started negotiations between themselves. In June 2020, Order and Justice and former MP Arturas Paulauskas' movement "Forward, Lithuania" merged into the party (combining with Artūras Zuokas–led party) and the new movement was renamed to Freedom and Justice. The party was affiliated with ALDE until its merger in 2020. MPs from Order and Justice,

Remigijus Žemaitaitis Remigijus Žemaitaitis (born 30 May 1982) is a Lithuanian politician and member of the Seimas. Biography Žemaitaitis was born on 30 May 1982 in Šilutė. In 2005, he graduated from the Faculty of Law at the Vilnius University. Until 2007 he work ...

and Kęstutis Bartkevičius became Freedom and Justice' representatives in the

Seimas The Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublikos Seimas), or simply the Seimas (), is the unicameral parliament of Lithuania. The Seimas constitutes the legislative branch of government in Lithuania, enacting laws and amendmen ...

. In 2020 Lithuanian parliamentary election only Remigijus Žemaitaitis retained his seat. In 2021, Žemaitaitis joined the Lithuanian Regions Parliamentary Group.

Ideology

The party has a conservative-liberal,

centre-right Centre-right politics lean to the Right-wing politics, right of the Left–right politics, political spectrum, but are closer to the Centrism, centre. From the 1780s to the 1880s, there was a shift in the Western world of social class structure a ...

profile and is supportive of both the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

and

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

. The party is in favour of allowing

civil union A civil union (also known as a civil partnership) is a legally recognized arrangement similar to marriage, created primarily as a means to provide recognition in law for same-sex couples. Civil unions grant some or all of the rights of marriage ...

s for same-sex couples. After it merger with

in 2020, the party adopts

stance on European integration. The party is economically liberal. It supports the privatization of parts of the health care sector and opposes the establishment of a national development bank. The party favours giving tax incentives to companies that hire seniors and opposes progressive taxation. Instead, it wants to lower value-added taxes.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control 2014 establishments in Lithuania Conservative liberal parties Conservative parties in Lithuania Liberal parties in Lithuania National liberal parties Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party member parties Political parties established in 2014