Twenty-four migrants have filed a class action lawsuit requesting compensation from Lithuania for arbitrary detention in 2021–2022.
The case was presented to the Regional Administrative Court with the support of the human rights NGO Amnesty International, it said in a statement.
In 2021, the Lithuanian government declared an emergency after several thousand migrants crossed irregularly from Belarus, allowing for their automatic detention.
“At least four thousand men, women and children were unlawfully detained for months on end, without any possibility to challenge the decision before a judge. This represented a betrayal of the rule of law of seismic proportions, imposing tremendous suffering on people who were looking for international protection and dignified treatment,” said Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for Europe Dinushika Dissanayake.
The claimants “suffered multiple injustices at the hands of the Lithuanian authorities”, she added. “By presenting this legal challenge, they are demanding justice for the time that was stolen from them and their children in detention,” according to Dissanayake.
The complainants are asking for monetary compensation of 5,000 euros each.
“If successful, the case will provide an avenue for reparation not only to them, but also to others who will hopefully be allowed to join the class action,” said Dissanayake.
Lawyer Rytis Satkauskas who represents the claimants has told BNS that once the group’s appeal is filed, the court has 14 working days to decide on the deadline for additional applicants to join the group. There could potentially be around 4,000 applicants.
When declaring the emergency, Lithuania accused the Belarusian government of trafficking migrants, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, as a way to exert pressure on the EU, calling it a “hybrid attack”. The government also instructed border guards to push the migrants back into Belarus.
According to Amnesty International, many of the claimants remained “unlawfully detained until 2022”.
“As far as I understand it, they [Amnesty International] have been approached by foreigners asking for support, and that support is probably primarily organizational, but also financial, because litigation is an expensive procedure,” Satkauskas, the lawyer, said.
The Lithuanian Constitutional Court ruled last year that the detentions were unconstitutional. It said that migrants were held for six months without the right to move freely and in the absence of any decision of the relevant competent authority, solely based on the fact that they crossed the Lithuanian border and applied for asylum.
“The case is also a damning indictment of the European Commission’s credibility as ‘guardian of the EU Treaties’. As this patent violation of EU law by the Lithuanian authorities is yet to give rise to the launch of infringement proceedings, three years later,” said Amnesty International’s Dissanayake.
Moreover, the human rights organisation said in the statement, Lithuania adopted legislation to legalise pushbacks, the unlawful practice of summary and often violent returns at the border, which continues until now and breaches international and EU law.
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