issued by the Registrar of the Court

ECHR 300 (2019)

03.09.2019

Judgments of 3 September 2019

The European Court of Human Rights has today notified in writing six judgments¹:

two Chamber judgments are summarised below;

four Committee judgments, concerning issues which have already been submitted to the Court, can

be consulted on Hudoc and do not appear in this press release.

The judgments summarised below are available only in English.

Januškevičienė v. Lithuania (application no. 69717/14)

The applicant, Ms Vida Januškevičienė, is a Lithuanian national who was born in 1955 and lives in

Vilnius.

The case concerned her complaint that court judgments in cases concerning other defendants had

stated that she had committed criminal offences, although she herself had not been tried in those

proceedings.

In 2007 the Vilnius office of the Financial Crime Investigation Service gave official notice to the

applicant that she and other individuals were suspected of various fraud-related crimes as part of an

organised group, including false invoicing.

The investigation was subsequently split and several trials were held. In particular, courts in 2009,

2012 and 2014 convicted other defendants. The courts’ judgments included statements such as the

applicant and others having received falsified invoices and cash and that those on trial had acted in

concert with the applicant and others.

Finalised charges were brought against the applicant in 2014 and the case went to trial. However,

the court discontinued the proceedings as time-barred in 2018.

The applicant complained in particular that she had not been able to appeal against the judgments

against third parties which had affected her right to the presumption of innocence. The Court dealt

with that complaint under Article 13 (right to an effective remedy) of the European Convention on

Human Rights.

No violation of Article 13

Religious Community of Jehovah’s Witnesses of Kryvyi Rih’s Ternivsky District

v. Ukraine (no. 21477/10)

The applicant community is the Religious Community of Jehovah’s Witnesses of Kryvyi Rih, Ternivsky

District, Dnipropetrovsk Region.

Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, Chamber judgments are not final. During the three-month period following a Chamber

judgment’s delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the Court. If such a request is made, a

panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and

deliver a final judgment. If the referral request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day. Under Article 28 of the

Convention, judgments delivered by a Committee are final.

Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for supervision of its execution.

Further information about the execution process can be found here: www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution

The case concerned the community’s complaint that it had not been able to construct a building for

worship on land it had purchased owing to the domestic authorities’ inactivity.

In 2004 the applicant community purchased a residential building in Kryvyi Rih in order subsequently

to erect a place of worship, a “Kingdom Hall”, on the site. In February 2005 the city’s Architecture

and Planning Council approved the placement of the Kingdom Hall on the land and seven months

later the city’s planning authority submitted a draft decision to approve a land allocation project and

to grant the applicant community a lease, but this plan was not adopted at subsequent City Council

meetings.

In February 2007 the applicant community initiated a first set of proceedings against the City

Council, seeking to have its lack of activity declared unlawful. In June 2007 the Regional Court

allowed the claim, but in August 2007 a draft decision on the applicant community’s project failed to

get enough votes to be adopted by the City Council.

In January 2008 the community lodged a second claim against the City Council for a declaration that

it had the right to lease the plot of land and for the City Council to be ordered to enter into a lease

agreement. In December 2008 the Regional Court rejected the claim, holding in particular that land

allocation decisions fell within the exclusive competence of councils and that the courts could not

replace the City Council and take the decision in its place. All further appeals by the religious

community were rejected.

Relying in particular on Article 9 (freedom of thought, conscience, and religion) and Article 1

(protection of property) of Protocol No. 1, the applicant community alleged that the City Council’s

failure to allow it to establish a place of worship had breached its rights.

Violation of Article 9

Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

Just satisfaction: 1,000 euros (EUR) (non-pecuniary damage) and EUR 6,000 (costs and expenses)

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The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe Member

States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European Convention on Human Rights.