CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 7 mars 2023

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s665E407E { margin-top:66pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .s83BE5C30 { font-family:Arial; font-size:8pt; vertical-align:super } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } Published on 27 March 2023   SECOND SECTION Application no. 3181/22 Žilvinas RUMINAS against Lithuania lodged on 5 January 2022 communicated on 7 March 2023 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns the applicant’s right of access to court. In February 2016 the police stopped the car driven by the applicant and tested him for alcohol. According to the police the applicant had been drunk; however, immediately afterwards the applicant gave blood at the hospital wherein no traces of alcohol were found. The applicant challenged the administrative law violation as established by the police, and on 7   November 2016 the Vilnius City District Court discontinued the administrative proceedings against the applicant, holding that the latter had not committed an administrative law violation. The court left unexamined the applicant’s request to be compensated for costs – 500   euros (EUR) for the advocate’s assistance and EUR   29 for the blood test at the hospital – holding that the Code of Administrative Law Violations did not foresee a possibility to compensate for costs which a person, who was charged with an administrative law violation, incurred. The applicant then lodged a request for compensation of pecuniary damage – the advocate’s costs and the expert examination costs – and for non-pecuniary damage, but by a final ruling of 29   October 2019 the Supreme Administrative Court held that no unlawful actions by the police had been established and the applicant’s request therefore had to be dismissed. On 19   March 2021 the Constitutional Court granted the applicant’s constitutional complaint and held that Article   302 1 of the Code of Administrative Law Violations, insofar as it did not provide that legal costs for an advocate’s assistance are reimbursed to a person in respect of whom a case for an administrative law violation had been discontinued on the grounds that such violation had not been committed, was in breach of Article   30 §   1 of the Constitution, which sets out the right of access to court, and of the principle of the State being under the rule of law. Following the Constitutional Court’s ruling, the applicant asked the Supreme Administrative Court to re-open the administrative proceedings for compensation of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. He noted that that court’s ruling of 29   October 2019 was based on a legal provision which was declared unconstitutional. By a final ruling of 27   October 2021 the Supreme Administrative Court refused the applicant’s request to re-open the administrative proceedings, holding, firstly, that the Constitutional Court’s ruling could not be the basis to re-open the administrative proceedings for damages as the Constitutional Court’s ruling was adopted after the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling of 29   October 2019, by which that administrative case had been resolved. Secondly, the Supreme Administrative Court considered that the applicant had not provided arguments or evidence to confirm that the ruling of 29   October 2019 had been in breach of material law and therefore unlawful. Under Article   6 §   1 of the Convention the applicant complains that although he was exonerated of having committed a particularly grave administrative law violation – having been accused of drunk driving, there was a breach of his right of access to court, because the courts refused to award him compensation for the costs incurred in the court proceedings in which the administrative law violation was lifted. QUESTION TO THE PARTIES Has there been a breach of the applicant’s right of access to court, as provided for in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, on account of the fact that the domestic courts did not award compensation for the costs the applicant incurred in connection with the proceedings for lifting the administrative law violation (see Černius and Rinkevičius v. Lithuania , nos.   73579/17 and   14620/18, §§   65-74, 18   February 2020)?