Possibilities to establish legal definition of “family” for the needs of family policy

Abstract

Implementation of family policy is based on groups of instruments helping to achieve aims of the policy. One of such group of instruments is law of the state. To this end, law serves by establishing legal categories involved and institutionalized in legal system, which confer legal status on the subjects of the state. The state seeking to address particular groups of persons upon the implementation of public policy needs a clear definition of addressees of certain orders or permissions, as well subjects submitted with certain rights and obligations. Thus, the purpose of the article is to provide proposals on the legal definition of “family” and “family members” which would contribute to proper implementation of family policy. The formulation of such proposals is chosen to be based on the analysis of functional fields of family policy. Design/methodology/approach. The article analyses current definitions of “family” and “family members” laid down in different laws of the Republic of Lithuania and how these definitions might be developed, i.e. what criteria should be used for the definition of “family” seeking to direct the legal regulation only to those subjects which are at the target of family policy. First of all, the paper presents possible approaches to the analysis of the establishment of “family” definition. Later on, analysis of current situation is introduced. In Lithuania, there are more than 200 laws with references to “family” or “family members”, however, only about 30 laws provide definition of “family” or “family members”, which appears to be different in most cases. The article seeks to discover the criteria for use of different definitions and trying to justify the use of different definitions in particular situations. [...]