In
Vasiliauskas v. Lithuania, (ECHR, Oct. 20, 2015), the European Court of Human Rights in a 9-8 decision by the Grand Chamber reversed a genocide conviction by the courts of Lithuania. As summarized by the Court's
press release:
The case concerned the conviction in 2004 of Mr Vasiliauskas, an officer in the State security services of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1952 to his retirement in 1975, for the genocide in 1953 of Lithuanian partisans who resisted Soviet rule after the Second World War....
The Court found in particular that it was clear that Mr Vasiliauskas’ conviction had been based upon legal provisions that had not been in force in 1953, and that such provisions had therefore been applied retroactively....
Although the offence of genocide had been clearly defined in the international law (notably, it had been codified in the 1948 Genocide Convention....), the Court took the view that his conviction could not have been foreseen under international law as it stood at the time of the killings of the partisans. Notably, international treaty law had not included a “political group” in the definition of genocide [it only included national, ethnic, racial or religious groups] and customary international law was not clear on the definition....
Courthouse News Service reports on the decision.
