ANNUAL REPORT OF 2019 ON THE ACTIVITIES OF THE SEIMAS OMBUDSMEN’S OFFICE OF THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA The Seimas Ombudsman was subsequently informed by the Ministry of Justice on the drafted laws aimed at depriving the Central Prison Hospital of the status of a correctional institution. According to the Ministry of Justice, if the proposed draft laws were approved, the convicted persons who do not need inpatient health care services would not be placed at the CPH; the planned changes are expected to take effect from 1 January 2020. ANALYSIS OF THE MAIN ISSUES RAISED IN APPLICANTS’ COMPLAINTS AND OWN INITIATIVE INVESTIGATIONS OF THE SEIMAS OMBUDSMEN Problems raised in the complaints of prisoners. In 2019, more than 1/3 of complaints filed with the Seimas Ombudsmen’s Office were submitted by prisoners, who complained about the restricted or even denied right to see relatives (for persons suffering from tuberculosis), unguaranteed or poorly guaranteed access to religious services or services of a priest, access to sports and various other activities, participation in social rehabilitation programmes, and restricted access to higher education, improper living conditions (material household provision) degrading human dignity. There were also complaints relating to the abuse of powers by officials of correctional institutions, such as ordering the prisoner suffering from tuberculosis to carry out disinfection of the ward and all cleaning/ maintenance works or the failure to deal with complaints (regarding improper meals, excessively high product prices and insufficient range of essential goods at the store of the correctional institution) by simply forwarding them to the relevant private legal entity that organises food and its sale. Installation and maintenance of technical traffic regulation measures. The investigation carried out by the Seimas Ombudsman showed that failure to EVERYONE COUNTS 26 impose on municipalities the obligation to regulate the installation and operation of technical traffic regulation measures creates uncertainty about the procedure for the installation of such measures, facilitates the delaying of the removal of arbitrarily constructed partitions, lockable metal locks, wire fences and other similar facilities not considered as structures, creates conditions for the conflict situations among residents, inefficient use of working time of institutions’ officers and budget funds. For these reasons, the principles of clarity, efficiency of legislation and responsible governance are undermined. In addition, the Seimas Ombudsman emphasized that the lack of proper regulation of the installation of technical measures restricting traffic also leads to lengthy court hearings. Municipal waste management. During the reporting year, the Seimas Ombudsman received a number of complaints concerning the management of municipal waste. The nature of these complaints varied considerably, notably due to the lack of coordination between the location of the semiunderground container sites in the vicinity of multiapartment dwellings and the population, without the possibility to exercise the right to dispose of municipal waste generated by municipal waste management rules autonomously, due to double taxation of the local toll (where the local toll is calculated both for the person operating on the basis of a business certificate and for the owner of the facility paying for construction waste), etc. Non-compliance with requirements of legal acts regulating the handling of requests by the Ministry of Environment. During the accounting year, the Seimas Ombudsman received a number of complaints concerning the failure of the officials of the Ministry of Environment to provide answers to requests thus infringing requirements of legal acts regulating the examination of requests. Under the legal regulation, each entity of public administration has the obligation to accept and examine requests within the limits of its powers; the handling of a request includes the acceptance of the person’s