"We are not questioning the court's decision and we are ready to comply with its order," Paulius Keras, deputy director of Kaunas City Municipal Administration, said in a comment to BNS. "It is important to emphasize that the court, through its ruling, assumes most of the responsibility for the possible consequences of the event."
"We believe that the court ruling does not negate the [police] officers' arguments that the march in Laisves Avenue poses a real threat to people's safety," he added.
Earlier on Friday, Lithuania's Supreme Administrative Court dismissed Kaunas Municipality's appeal and gave it until 6 p.m. to authorize Saturday's LGBTQ+ march to take place along the route requested by the organizers.
The ruling is final and not subject to appeal.
The organizers of the Kaunas Pride march expect around 1,000 people to take part in the LGBTQ+ event in Lithuania's second-largest city on Saturday.
The march is planned to start at St. Michael the Archangel Church, better known as Soboras. From there, participants will walk through the city's central Laisves Avenue and then back.
In June, the local authority refused to issue a permit for the Kaunas Pride march through the city's main street, citing ongoing infrastructure renovation work and |disproportionate inconvenience" to the city's residents as the reason.
The organizers appealed the decision to the Regional Administrative Court which in early August ordered the local authority to authorize the LGBTQ+ march along the route requested by the organizers.
On August 26, the city appealed the ruling to the supreme court.