Amendments concerning the Administrative Offenses Code (ANK) were recently registered by several parliamentary members, including the Chairwoman of the Health Committee of the Seimas, Lina Šukytė-Korsakė, the Minister of Social Security and Labour, Jūratė Zailskienė, and the Chairwoman of the Commission on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Indrė Kižienė. These legislative changes aim to address current deficiencies in the regulation of non-professional assistance services. Currently, administrative accountability for the unauthorized provision of social care services is legally restricted.
Responsibility under the ANK is limited solely to the heads of legal entities or designated responsible parties. A significant gap exists, as the existing code structure does not provide mechanisms to penalize natural persons who engage in such activities illegally. According to the developers of the project, the current legal framework presents a worrying situation within Lithuania.
They note that services offered to socially vulnerable persons frequently replicate the scope and nature of professional social and health care services. Because the law fails to assign direct administrative penalties to the individual providers—the natural persons offering the care—there is a gap in enforcement. The proposed amendments seek to broaden the scope of administrative responsibility.
By allowing for the punishment of individual persons engaging in illegal social care activities, the legislation intends to close this accountability gap. This adjustment is designed to better protect the rights and well-being of vulnerable persons by ensuring that all providers, regardless of their legal status, are subject to appropriate oversight when delivering social support services.
Topics: #social #care #persons
This seems like a necessary step to enforce accountability in social care services.