SECOND SECTION
CASE OF RUMINAS v. LITHUANIA
(Application no. 3181/22)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
13 May 2025
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Ruminas v. Lithuania,
The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Anja Seibert-Fohr, President,
 Davor Derenčinović,
 Gediminas Sagatys, judges,
and Dorothee von Arnim, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 3181/22) against the Republic of Lithuania lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 5 January 2022 by a Lithuanian national, Mr Žilvinas Ruminas (“the applicant”), who was born in 1986, lives in Vilnius and was represented by Mr K. Rugys, a lawyer practising in Vilnius;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Lithuanian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms K. Bubnytė-Širmenė,
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 22 April 2025,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case concerns the domestic courts’ refusal to reimburse costs and expenses incurred by the applicant in administrative offence proceedings in which he successfully challenged an administrative-law violation for driving under the influence of alcohol. 2. On 6 February 2016 during a stop and search (policijos reidas), the applicant was stopped by the police while driving his car in Vilnius and asked to take a breathalyser test. The test detected 1.38 per mille of alcohol (the legal limit for driving was 0.4 per mille). The applicant denied having consumed any alcohol, and asked the police officer to be tested again, which the police officer refused to do. The police drew up a report of an administrative-law violation under Article 126 § 1 of the Code of Administrative Law Violations (hereinafter – “the CALV”). The applicant refused to sign that police report; he stated that he had not consumed any alcohol in the last three days. 3. Within one hour of being stopped by the police the applicant went to a hospital where a blood test was performed (this being a requirement under domestic law so that the medical examination result would be valid); no alcohol whatsoever was detected in his blood. 4. On 7 November 2016 the Vilnius City District Court established that it was for the police to prove the applicant’s guilt of drunk-driving, and that any discrepancies should be interpreted in favour of the person against whom the administrative-law violation proceedings were brought. In the applicant’s case, according to the forensic expert’s report, it was impossible for no trace of alcohol to remain in the applicant’s blood within an hour of testing positive with the police breathalyser. The forensic expert who testified in court also stated that it would be impossible to artificially reduce the alcohol level to zero from 1.38 per mille within one hour. The court concluded that there remained a real possibility that the breathalyser used had shown incorrect data. The District Court also noted that although the breathalyser test had been taken at 02:42:31 on 6 February 2016, the report of the administrative violation “somehow” indicated that the applicant had been driving the car under the influence of alcohol at 2.25 a.m. The court discontinued the administrative-law violation proceedings against the applicant, holding that no administrative-law violation had been committed (nenustačius pažeidimo įvykio ir sudėties). 5. By the same ruling, the court left unexamined the applicant’s request to be compensated for costs – EUR 500 for assistance by a lawyer and EUR 29 for the blood test at the hospital – holding that neither Article 279 nor other provisions of the CALV or of the Code of Criminal Procedure (hereinafter – “the CCP”), which were applied mutatis mutandis in cases of administrative law violations, foresaw a possibility of compensation for costs which a person had incurred in connection with the examination of a case regarding an administrative-law violation. The court noted that the applicant, if he considered that he had sustained damage because of the law‑enforcement authorities’ actions, could initiate court proceedings for compensation of such damage, in accordance with the law on civil proceedings or other legislation. The court referred to Article 6.249 § 1 of the Civil Code, and noted that costs which the applicant had sustained in connection with the hearing of the case on an administrative law violation, potentially could be considered as a constitutive part of pecuniary damage sustained. The court ruling was not appealed against either by the applicant or by the police authorities and became final. 6. The applicant then brought administrative court proceedings, claiming EUR 529 for pecuniary damage (lawyer’s fee and blood test fee) and EUR 5,000 for non-pecuniary damage, amounts he claimed to have sustained as a result of the administrative-law violation proceedings. 7. In a decision of 24 October 2017 the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court considered that the applicant’s claim fell to be examined not only under the rules of the Law on Administrative Law Proceedings, but also under Article 6.271 of the Civil Code (see for the content of that provision Jakutavičius v. Lithuania, no. 42180/19, § 20, 13 February 2024), and dismissed the applicant’s claim, having held that no unlawful actions on the part of the police officers, when drawing up the administrative-law violation report, had been established. The court also rejected as unwarranted the applicant’s request to refer the question of compatibility of the legal regulation, under which legal costs were not awarded in administrative-law violation cases, to the Constitutional Court for interpretation (see also paragraph 9 below). 8. By a final and non-appealable ruling of 29 October 2019 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court’s decision of 24 October 2017. 9. On 19 March 2021, having examined the applicant’s constitutional complaint, the Constitutional Court concluded that the fact that Article 3021 (wording of 18 November 2010) of the CALV did not provide for the reimbursement of legal costs incurred by a person in respect of whom administrative-law violation proceedings had been discontinued on the grounds that no such violation had been committed was not consistent with the right of access to a court guaranteed by the Constitution. In particular, that legal regulation meant that a person who had successfully challenged an administrative fine with the help of a lawyer might find himself or herself in a worse situation than he or she would have been in without having defended his or her rights, which amounted to an unjustifiable burden on the exercise of the right of access to a court. The Constitutional Court also concluded that, similarly, Article 106 of the CCP (as amended on 26 June 2020) did not provide for the reimbursement of legal costs incurred by an acquitted person and that that regulation was not in compliance with the Constitution either (see for the content of that ruling also Jakutavičius, cited above, §§ 42-46). 10. Afterwards, referring to the Constitutional Court’s ruling, the applicant asked the Supreme Administrative Court to re-open the administrative proceedings for compensation in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage. 11. By a non-appealable ruling of 27 October 2021 the Supreme Administrative Court refused the applicant’s request to re-open the administrative proceedings. Firstly, during the administrative proceedings for compensation of damage it had not relied on the provisions of the CALV and CCP which the Constitutional Court had declared unconstitutional. Secondly, none of the grounds on which the applicant had based his request to re-open the proceedings existed (essential circumstances, which could not have been known when hearing the case, came to light; an essential breach of material legal norms occurred in their application, which could have led to the adoption of an unlawful court decision; it was necessary to guarantee a uniform practice of the administrative courts). 12. The applicant complained that the fact that his costs and expenses had not been reimbursed had violated his right to effectively defend himself, in breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

Outcome for Article 6: violation