The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Lithuania violated the religious freedom of a Jehovah’s Witness minister by failing to provide him with a genuine alternative to mandatory military service.
The Strasbourg-based court found last week that Lithuania breached the rights of Erikas Rutkauskas, who argued that compulsory military service conflicted with his religious beliefs. Rutkauskas had requested civilian service instead, but military authorities rejected his application in 2015. Lithuanian courts later upheld that decision.
The court ordered the Lithuanian government to pay Rutkauskas 1,000 euros in compensation.
Government lawyers had asked the court to dismiss the case, noting that Rutkauskas ultimately never served in the armed forces. His call-up was suspended in September 2015 after enough volunteers enlisted, and the following year he was no longer eligible for conscription due to age.
Officials also told the court that the military had since introduced transitional measures to prevent conscription of individuals who requested civilian service independent of military oversight.
This is the second time in recent years that Lithuania has lost a similar case in Strasbourg. In June 2022, the court ruled in favour of another Jehovah’s Witness minister, Lithuanian citizen Stanislav Teliatnikov, who was living in Turkey at the time. He also refused military service in 2015 on religious grounds and sought an alternative.
In both cases, the court found that Lithuania’s system failed to strike a fair balance between the interests of society and those of conscientious objectors who did not refuse their civic duties outright. The judges noted that Lithuania’s so-called alternative defence service remained closely tied to the military and could not be regarded as a distinct form of civilian service.
Laurynas Šedvydis, chair of the Lithuanian parliament’s Human Rights Committee, told BNS news agency that the system should be reformed.
“Lithuania should ensure better opportunities for people to serve in other ways because of their religious or personal beliefs,” he said. “Why, for example, shouldn’t service in the health sector be considered equally valuable?”
Lithuania reinstated mandatory military service in 2014 following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Several thousand young men are conscripted each year.
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