Cases Against Lithuania in the European Court of Human Rights (2019–2021): In Search of Landmark Judgments

Abstract

The article deals with the 2019–2021 case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in cases against Lithuania, trying to identify landmark judgments, i.e., such judgments that may have a lasting effect on the Court’s future case-law. Virtually all ECtHR Chamber judgments adopted in the said period, by which cases were decided on the merits, as well as inadmissibility decisions are discussed. Their significance not only for the Strasbourg Court’s case-law but also for Lithuanian law (including courts’ case-law) is demonstrated, some pertinent problems of Lithuanian law are identified, which are particularly highlighted by the Strasbourg Court’s judgments in “Lithuanian” cases. Using the method of exclusion, three judgments of the said period are selected, which could be treated (in advance and subject to reservations) as landmark ones: Drėlingas v. Lithuania (2019), Rinau v. Lithuania (2020) and – as the “most suitable” candidate for the status of a landmark judgment – Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania (2020). The article provides an explanation, nowhere laid out so far, what factors may have led to that that the Drėlingas judgment, as it is, has at all become possible, which, although being a Chamber judgment, clearly dissonates with the Grand Chamber judgment in Vasiliauskas v. Lithuania (2015).