[ad_1]
By six votes to one, the Strasbourg court ruled that the statements by then-President Dalia Grybauskaitė and the attention of the media did not unduly influence the legal process.
“The court found no reason to believe that public statements by public officials and politicians endangered the independence and impartiality of the administrative courts,” the European Court of Human Rights ruled.
Kaunas prosecutor Rita Čivinskaitė filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights. The then Deputy Chief Prosecutor of the Kaunas District Prosecutor’s Office was demoted in October 2009 for misconduct, explaining the allegations of child abuse. The Lithuanian administrative courts confirmed this decision.
In a complaint to Strasbourg, the prosecutor claimed that the Lithuanian courts had been affected by public opinion, statements by politicians and media attention.
He also noted that then-President D. Grybauskaitė had told reporters that he expected “stricter” decisions regarding the Kaunas prosecutors investigating the case.
Photo by Lukas Balandi / 15min / Dalia Grybauskaitė
According to the prosecutor, “the president’s insistence on severe punishments affected the fairness of the processes in the administrative courts.”
However, the European Court of Human Rights disagreed with this: the judges noted that despite D. Grybauskaitė’s speeches, the punishment was not stricter and the demotion was based on specific job gaps.
“The Court does not wish to speculate as to what effect said statement might have had on the course of the proceedings in question. However, it should not be overlooked that the administrative courts, having examined the applicant’s demotion claim, did not impose a penalty on her. more severe than the one chosen by the Attorney General ”, says the sentence.
“In addition, the courts justified the relevance of the demotion by referring to the specific responsibilities of the supervising prosecutor and listing the specific actions that the applicant had not taken. In these circumstances, the Court does not consider that the President’s statement on the sentences to be imposed on the Kaunas prosecutors raised doubts about the independence and impartiality of the courts in the proceedings related to the plaintiff’s personal responsibility, “said the court of Strasbourg.
The judges were also not convinced by the prosecutor’s arguments about the impact of the media in the case.
“The court cannot accept that the language used in the media reports on the plaintiff in the proceedings against her is such as to give the impression of her responsibility for specific violations (…). The court does not see conclusive evidence that the judges who evaluated the plaintiff’s arguments have been influenced by any of these press publications, “the court ruled.
Slovenian judge Mark Bošnjak issued a separate opinion on the case. According to him, the Lithuanian courts did not adequately evaluate the prosecutor’s arguments regarding political and media pressure in her case. He stressed that courts also had to assess the possible visibility of bias.
[ad_2]
