Amnesty International welcomed on Wednesday the decision of Lithuania’s Supreme Administrative Court to accept a class action lawsuit from 24 asylum seekers who were arbitrarily detained by Lithuanian authorities between 2021 and 2022. The organization praised the ruling as a significant step toward justice and reparation for asylum seekers who have faced mistreatment and human rights abuses.
Amnesty International stated that the court’s decision marks notable progress in holding European Union (EU) member states accountable for violating the rights of refugees and maintaining hostile migration policies. The organization detailed that the refugees who filed the claim were subjected to poor detention conditions in prison-like centers, faced harassment and unlawful detention, and were denied the right to question the legality of their detention.
The case dates back to June 2024 when a group of 24 individuals filed a class action before the Regional Administrative Court, seeking compensation for their prolonged arbitrary detention by Lithuanian authorities following the country’s announcement of a state of emergency in response to irregular crossings at the Belarusian border in 2021. The regional court initially rejected the lawsuit because claimants failed to produce their detention orders. The asylum seekers appealed, however, and argued that this rejection violated their right to an effective judicial remedy since Lithuanian authorities did not provide or serve the required detention orders. The appeals court overturned the regional court’s decision and accepted the claimants’ action, which the Supreme Administrative Court upheld in its ruling.
Amnesty International has previously criticized Lithuanian policies that legalize both the automatic detention of refugees crossing irregularly into the country and pushbacks in response to the influx of migrants in 2021. According to the organization’s report, thousands of refugees from countries such as India, Cameroon, Nigeria, Syria, and Iraq were arbitrarily detained by Lithuanian authorities for over a year without the ability to challenge their detention during the first six months.
Relatedly, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in 2022 that a Lithuanian law permitting the automatic detention of refugees and denying them the right to asylum was contrary to EU law, including the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Additionally, the Lithuanian Constitutional Court ruled that the law imposing automatic detention on all individuals seeking asylum during the initial six-month period violated the right to liberty guaranteed by Article 20 of the Lithuanian Constitution, but the state failed to implement mechanisms for providing reparation to the victims.
Following the Supreme Administrative Court’s ruling, asylum seekers who experienced arbitrary detention in Lithuania in 2021-2022 have until June 10 to join the class action lawsuit and seek reparation for the harm they endured.