A. Sacharukas filed a complaint with the ECtHR in 2019, but the trial took almost five years. The panel of judges in Strasbourg, which included Egidijus Kūris, decided that Dalia Bajerčiūtė, the then judge of the Supreme Court of Lithuania, was biased by not recusing herself from the trial.
Although the ECtHR satisfied A. Sacharuk’s complaint, it did not award monetary compensation, as it decided that a positive decision alone is sufficient compensation.
The suspicions are after the wedding
A. Sacharukas got into the meat grinder of law enforcement four years after the widely publicized events in the Seimas in 2010, when the MP was accused of voting 11 times for his colleague Linas Karalais, who went to Thailand. An impeachment was organized, but A.Sacharuk managed to keep his mandate.
After finishing his political career, A. Sacharuk started working as a lawyer and had already forgotten this story. However, four years after the impeachment in the Seimas and right after his wedding, A. Sacharuks unexpectedly received a call from the investigator that he would be charged.
The case was quickly completed and brought to court.
The Seimas is a common practice
During the pre-trial investigation and in court, A.Sacharukas argued that voting for others was a common practice at that time.
Evidence was presented that at least 20 other members of the Seimas of that time voted for others.
At the request of A. Sakharuk’s lawyers, the court reviewed the records of the hearings of just two days – January 14 and 19, 2010. They clearly showed that the 15 parliamentarians of that time voted for each other 19 times.
Even A. Sacharukas, who was not present in the meeting hall, was voted for. The video cameras recorded how one of the most active organizers of the impeachment, Ligits Kernagis, the former chairman of the Seimas anti-corruption committee, even voted for him twice.
“If you had the patience to watch at least a month’s worth of videos, you would have to punish almost half of the members of the Seimas,” A. Sacharukas joked at the time.
He urged others to file cases as well
During the trial, A. Sakharuk’s lawyers requested that the court, by its ruling, oblige the prosecutor’s office to open a pre-trial investigation for the other 20 parliamentarians who were recorded voting for their colleagues.
However, the Vilnius District Court, which acquitted A. Sacharukas, decided that voting for colleagues is not a crime and refused to turn to the prosecutor’s office.
Although prosecutors appealed the acquittal to the Court of Appeal, the appeal was rejected.
The prosecutor’s office suggested
But everything turned upside down when the case ended up in the Supreme Court in 2016. The panel chaired by D. Bajerčiūtė annulled the acquittal and sent the case back to the Court of Appeals for re-examination. In its ruling, the court stated that it is necessary to follow the arguments of the prosecutor’s complaint that A.Sacharukas committed the crime.
The judges of the Court of Cassation then asserted that the practice of voting for each other in the Seimas cannot be relied upon.
“According to such motives, all defendants who were caught bribing or stealing should be acquitted, when such a practice was formed in the entire collective,” the ruling states.
Although A. Sakharuk’s lawyers during the hearing of the same case had submitted a request to the court to initiate a pre-trial investigation against 20 more parliamentarians, the Supreme Court emphasized in its ruling that law enforcement authorities had not been informed of any such case so far.
The judge decided not to recuse himself
Due to such a ruling of the court of cassation, which stated almost verbatim that A.Sacharukas had committed a crime, the Court of Appeals, which re-examined the case, had no other option but to convict A.Sacharukas. So the ex-parliamentarian was found guilty and fined.
After the verdict was again appealed to the Supreme Court, the case was assigned to a panel, whose reporter was appointed D. Bajerčiūtė, who also presided over the first hearing in the court of cassation.
Since the same judge cannot hear the same case a second time, A.Sacharukas was convinced that some mistake had been made when appointing the panel. He was convinced that the judge would step down on her own. But she didn’t. The judge did not recuse herself even when her lawyers asked her to recuse herself.
Expects an objective process
It was the possible bias of the judge that became the pretext for A. Sacharuk to apply to the ECtHR.
The ECtHR panel that examined this case recognized that the state did not guarantee the former parliamentarian the right to an impartial trial. Although judge D.Bajerčiūtė was not named in the resolution part of the decision, such a conclusion was adopted based on the case where the judge, having presented her position, re-examined the same case.
“I won the battle, but not the war. I wanted to prove that the principle of an impartial court should apply to all judges. I hope that after the reopening of the case in Lithuania, it will be examined objectively”, said A. Sacharukas after the favorable decision of the ECHR.
