The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has opened a case against Lithuania over penalties slammed on an NGO that was helping migrants stranded on the Belarus border.
Volunteers of the NGO Sienos Grupė (Border Group) were working to provide assistance to migrants during the so-called migration crisis in 2021, when Belarus started bringing people, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, to its border with Lithuania and Poland. Lithuania’s border guards started pushing the migrants back, leaving them in a perilous situation.
According to Sienos Grupė, its volunteers were fined when they came to help a Syrian man lying in the snow and unable to walk, and later called an ambulance for him.
At the time, Lithuania had a state of emergency in place and authorities were not permitting anyone to enter the border area without permission. The State Border Guard Service (VSAT) fined the NGO for violating the ban. Sienos Grupė disagreed and took the case to court.
According to the ECHR, the Alytus District Court found that the applicants had committed the contested administrative offence and that their actions were not justified by necessity, as the volunteers were not qualified to provide medical assistance to a person in distress.
However, the court annulled the fines and replaced them with warnings. Subsequently, the Kaunas Regional Court upheld the lower court’s ruling.
The NGO then turned to the Supreme Court which rejected the appeal, finding no reason to reopen the case.
Eventually, Sienos Grupė turned to the ECHR, which took up a case concerning a possible violation of freedom of association.
It is also assessing whether the right to a fair trial has been properly guaranteed and whether Lithuania has violated the European Convention on Human Rights, which prohibits punishment without a crime.
Mantautas Šulskus, director of Sienos Grupė, said that the fines imposed by the border guards “contributed to scaring an already agitated public”.
“The communication and actions of the state authorities – the fines, the subsequent pre-trial investigation, [calling us] ‘pseudo-volunteers’ – have antagonised a part of the public and have caused significant reputational damage not only to us but to the humanitarian aid sector in general,” he said.
Lithuania still has the extreme situation regime in place and anyone who wants to enter the border area needs a permit.
Rytis Satkauskas, the lawyer representing Sienos Grupė in the case, notes that the VSAT does not issue permits to anyone who has been punished for violating the rule in the last 12 months.
“On this basis, Sienos Grupė volunteers were subsequently denied permits, thus limiting their most important activity, providing humanitarian aid at the border,” he said.
“It is not against the law to save lives,” the lawyer added.
The ECHR has put questions to Lithuania in the case, which it must answer by June.
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