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Transitional Justice Cases Against Lithuania at the European Court of Human Rights

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Abstract

This chapter addresses transitional justice in Lithuania by looking at the relevant cases of the European Court of Human Rights. The aim is to highlight specific features of Lithuanian experience of transitional justice in the context of human rights and, specifically, to examine whether Lithuania is still a country in transition in any respect. Transitional justice cases against Lithuania decided at the European Court of Human Rights fall into the following categories according to their subject matter: (1) cases related to the restitution of property rights, (2) cases related to the lustration of collaborators with the totalitarian regime, (3) cases related to the punishment of perpetrators guilty of acting against the Republic of Lithuania, (4) cases related to the freedom of expression with regard to the past. The chapter concludes that the circumstance of transition has lost much of its importance for Lithuania regarding the first two categories of cases because of the progress in building pluralist democracy and successful integration into European structures. It remains, however, relevant for the last two categories of cases, notably where disagreements about the history of the wrongs of the Soviet communist regime arise.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ECtHR, Jasiūnienė v. Lithuania, §38: To the extent that the applicant complained about the nationalisation of the plot and the destruction of her late mother’s house by the Soviet authorities in the 1960s, the Court points out that is has no competence ratione temporis to examine this part of the application as it relates to events prior to 20 June 1995, that is the date of the entry into force of the Convention with regard to Lithuania, and 24 May 1996, i.e. the date of the entry into force of Protocol No. 1 with regard to Lithuania. It follows that this part of the application is incompatible with the provisions of the Convention and its Protocols.

  2. 2.

    Buyse and Hamilton (2011b), p. 291: “Underlying this stance may be a desire to promote stability and the rule of law rather than to function as a mechanism to provide historic justice. <...> In this sense, the Court does not fit in the broader international trend with its emphasis on restitution, truth commissions and memorialisation.”

  3. 3.

    ECtHR (2004b) (Kopecký v. Slovakia), §35 (d): Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 cannot be interpreted as imposing any general obligation on the Contracting States to restore property which was transferred to them before they ratified the Convention. Nor does Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 impose any restrictions on the Contracting States’ freedom to determine the scope of the restitution of such property or to choose the conditions under which they agree to restore property rights of former owners.

  4. 4.

    It is worth recalling that the UN Human Rights Committee has taken the opposite view on the acceptability of citizenship as an eligibility criterion for property restitution—see Adam v. Czech Republic analysed in Macklem (2005).

  5. 5.

    E.g., ECtHR (2018b) (Bartulienė v. Lithuania), § 75–76 (procedure started in 1991, rights partly restored in 1993 and 1994, communication between the applicant and the authorities regarding the remaining land started in 2003, her property rights to some land restored in 2009 and the decision to pay her compensation issued in 2016); 2017b (Grigolovič v. Lithuania), § 40, 46 (procedure started in 2000, applicant was asked to change his mind in 2014, no action by authorities between then and 2017); ECtHR (2018c) (Beinarovič and Others v. Lithuania), § 7, 40, 61 (applications for restoration of rights submitted in 1991, property rights not yet restored in 2018).

  6. 6.

    The Law on the evaluation of the USSR State Security Committee (NKVD, NKGB, MGB, KGB) and the present activities of former permanent employees of the organisation, 1998 and the Law on registering, confession, entry into records and protection of persons who have admitted to secret collaboration with special services of the former USSR, 1999.

  7. 7.

    ECtHR (2009a), § 33. One researcher notes that in the earlier Rainys and Gasparavičius v. Lithuania case the ECtHR had found that the differentiation in the 1998 Lustration Law was appropriate, but she does so referring to the position of the Government of Lithuania (§ 32 of the judgment) and not the ECtHR itself—see Horne (2009), p. 726. In fact, in Sidabras and Džiautas the ECtHR refrained from assessing whether the lack of loyalty to the State was proven (and, thus, whether lustration was sufficiently justified) (§ 56) and found a violation even assuming that it was (§ 57). In Rainys the ECtHR heavily relied on its finding in Sidabras and followed the same line of reasoning.

  8. 8.

    Horne (2009), p. 726: “the ECHR has not found anything intrinsically incompatible between due process safeguards and lustration laws”; Czarnota (2009), p. 334: “Generally the Court confirmed the rights to defend the public sphere but also stated that lustration should be limited in the private sphere.”

  9. 9.

    In academic literature, this concept is also known as “militant democracy,” see Hamilton (2011a), p. 225.

  10. 10.

    ECtHR (2008b) (Ādamsons v. Latvia), § 131: prolongation in 2004 of restrictions of electoral rights was manifestly arbitrary because Latvian authorities did not explain the reasons for such prolongation despite the passage of time, stability and integration of Latvia into European structures; Varju (2009), p. 183: Ādamsons provides “confirmation that according to the Court of Human Rights the process of democratic transition should have been completed by now”.

  11. 11.

    ECtHR (2008a) (Kuolelis, Bartoševičius and Burokevičius v. Lithuania), § 124: “[t]he applicants were not prosecuted for their political beliefs or communist party affiliations, but for their anti-state activities, in contravention of Article 17 of the Convention, against which the young democracy of Lithuania had been entitled to defend itself”.

  12. 12.

    Fijalkowski (2018), p. 230: as regards Drėlingas’s case decided by the Supreme Court of Lithuania in April 2016 the author claims that the Supreme Court “is rendering rulings that do not conform to ECtHR decisions, and are arguably unconstitutional”.

  13. 13.

    On 10.09.2019, the ECtHR announced that it rejected the applicant’s request to refer the case Drėlingas v. Lithuania to the Grand Chamber, see Grand Chamber Panel’s decisions. Press Release issued by the Registrar of the Court 10.09.2019.

  14. 14.

    Which means that the underlying question is already the subject of well-established case law. On the competence of committees, see Article 28 ECHR.

  15. 15.

    Hamilton (2011b), pp. 178–180: passage of time and lack of individualisation were decisive for finding a violation in Ādamsons v. Latvia only two years later than in Ždanoka v. Latvia where individualisation was not yet required and a violation was not found.

  16. 16.

    Buyse (2011), p. 137: “in general the Court leaves the states little leeway in using the argument of transition as a reason to interfere with human rights. Only very short periods of transition, in which the threats to the stability of democracy are still considerable and direct, are relevant”.

References

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Public Law, Vilnius University Faculty of Law, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Vygantė Milašiūtė

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  1. Department of Criminal Justice, Vilnius University Faculty of Law, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Gintaras Švedas

  2. Department of Public Law, Vilnius University Faculty of Law, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Donatas Murauskas

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Milašiūtė, V. (2021). Transitional Justice Cases Against Lithuania at the European Court of Human Rights. In: Švedas, G., Murauskas, D. (eds) Legal Developments During 30 Years of Lithuanian Independence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54783-7_1

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