ECHR: The Supreme Court may have been biased in a dispute over Achema Group’s actions

According to the Strasbourg court, reasonable doubts about impartiality were due to the fact that the Supreme Court judges did not withdraw from the examination of the complaint, although they were familiar with the then director and shareholder of Achema Group Romualdas Žadeikas and the lawyer Gintaras Balčiūnas. They are named in the public court decision with the initials R. Ž. and GB

M. Kaminskiene received 4,000 sentences from the three-judge panel of the European Court of Human Rights. moral damage.

The court decision establishes that in 2016, M. Kaminskienė requested arbitration to award 12 million. unpaid dividends of EUR. His appeal was rejected by arbitration a year later. Ms. Kaminskienė tried unsuccessfully to challenge the arbitration decision in the Lithuanian Courts of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Depending on the case, judges EL and D. Š. – Judges Egidijus Laužikas and Donatas Šernas worked with those initials in court at that time. E. Laužikas was fired in 2019 when he was suspected of corruption.

The Strasbourg court emphasized that these judges had declared personal ties to Mr. Žadeika and Mr. Balčiūnas and had even withdrawn from other cases involving them.

“He[Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos]he was not convinced that the cases in question were so different that the plaintiffs’ doubts about the impartiality of the judges were unfounded. It points out that the defendants in the present action, brought by the applicant, were AG (Achema Group – BNS), in which Mr Ž. and several members of his family had a significant stake, ”the court said.

‘Given the applicant’s intention to award a large sum, it can reasonably be assumed that the company and its major shareholders would have suffered significant economic losses if this claim had been upheld. Although, according to the Government, R. Ž. he was eventually removed from AG, there is no indication in the file that he or his family members have renounced their shares in that company, ”the Strasbourg court noted.

“The court considers that R. Ž. and GB were sufficiently involved in the proceedings between the applicant and AG for their interests to be affected. Taking these two people and judges EL and D. Š. the Court recognizes that the impartiality of both judges can be questioned, ”says the judgment.

The Strasbourg court noted that Judge Laužikas was the rapporteur and the president of the first selection chamber and Judge Šernas was the rapporteur of the second selection chamber.

“In these circumstances, the Court concludes that the plaintiff had reason to believe that each of these judges had played an important role in announcing the decisions not to admit their appeals on legal grounds and that the impartiality of the Supreme Court could be reasonably questioned. “the court said.

“Therefore, the Court concludes that the plaintiff’s doubts regarding judges EL and D. Š. impartiality could be considered objectively justified and that national legislation and practice do not provide sufficient procedural guarantees to dispel these doubts, ”the decision reads.

The daily Lietuvos Rytas had written that in this case Ms Kaminskienė had tried unsuccessfully to recover the two shares held by her late husband, who had died in 1994, refuting the fact that they had been transferred.

According to the Records Center data, at the end of 2020, M. Kaminskiene owned 156 shares of Achema Group. They accounted for 6.98 percent. the authorized capital of the group.

R. Žadeika has 0.49 percent. Adomas Žadeika still has the same amount of capital, and Jūratė Žadeikienė still has 11.94 percent.