A/HRC/19/15 Britain and Northern Ireland for their questions submitted prior to the review. It also thanked OHCHR and NGOs for their substantial inputs. 8. Lithuania highly valued its cooperation with the United Nations human rights bodies and procedures: recommendations provided by treaty bodies prove to be extremely useful in assessing laws and policies, so that actions can be taken to improve them. Cooperation with United Nations bodies is also important as a good practice sharing opportunity. 9. Lithuania made a very rapid transition from neglect to respect of human rights. It has reached substantial results in many areas of guaranteeing human rights and is ready to share its experience. More specifically, the Republic of Lithuania regained its independence in 1990 and was immediately confronted with the task of modernizing its legal system, ensuring a smooth transition to a democratic regime based on the respect for human rights and freedoms. In fact, in creating the system for the protection of human rights, Lithuania in 1990 had to start from scratch, especially in the field of civil and political rights as it could not build upon an earlier tradition for the protection of human rights. New institutions had to be established, new substantive and procedural laws had to be adopted, and professionals had to be trained in order to introduce a functioning human rights protection system and a human rights culture in Lithuania. 10. Assumption and implementation of obligations under international human rights documents was an important component in this process. It was stated in the Act on the Reestablishment of the State of Lithuania of 11 March 1990 that the State guaranteed human and civil rights as well as rights of ethnic minorities. Even before its official recognition by the majority of States, in early 1991 Lithuania adopted a resolution to solemnly undertake obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and to accede to both the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural, Rights and to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. 11. Lithuania has a strong institutional structure to ensure implementation of human rights standards. While at the Government level all ministries are responsible for the protection of human rights in their respective competence areas, there are three Ombudspersons’ institutions - one of general competence, one for equal opportunities and one for children’s rights - entrusted with the task of protection of human rights both in reaction to received complaints and proactively. 12. Lithuania’s achievements in the field of gender equality were acknowledged by the European Union when Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, was chosen to be the seat of the European Institute for Gender Equality. In Lithuania, women hold two of the three topranking public administration posts, i.e. the President of the Republic and the Chairperson of the Parliament. Women account for 40 per cent of all managerial staff: legislators, senior public officials, and heads of establishments, institutions and other organizations. 13. In 2010, Lithuania was ranked eleventh in the world in the Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters without Borders and classified as a free country in terms of the press freedom by Freedom House. 14. Admittedly, Lithuania faced challenges too. The recent global economic crisis had been one of such challenges: temporary reduction of salaries in the public sector as well as revision of certain benefits made it possible to keep the social protection at appropriate level and provide social assistance at least for the most vulnerable groups of the population. 15. Another challenge was to continuously improve the system for the protection of human rights, benefiting from the best practices of the international community, in particular in developing the principles applicable to national human rights institutions. In view of the recommendations of international human rights institutions to reinforce the 4