Lexploria

Information Note on the Court’s case-law 252

June 2021

Ancient Baltic religious association “Romuva” v. Lithuania - 48329/19

Judgment 8.6.2021 [Section II]

Article 14

Discrimination

Denial of State recognition to a pagan religious association meeting eligibility criteria, on grounds incompatible with the State’s duty of neutrality and impartiality: violation

Facts – The applicant, a non-traditional religious association established under Lithuanian law and comprising several religious communities following the old Baltic pagan faith, applied to be granted the status of a State-recognised religious association. Such status would have entitled it to a number of privileges, namely, the right for its ministers to perform religious marriages that would have had the effect of civil marriages, the right to provide religious education in schools, the right to be given airtime for the purpose of broadcasting its religious services, an exemption from the payment of land tax, and the right for its ministers to receive social insurance benefits at the expense of the State.

The Ministry of Justice concluded that the applicant association fulfilled all the legal requirements and a draft resolution proposing its recognition, presented by a group of members of the Seimas (the Lithuanian parliament), was examined and supported by other State authorities as well as the Government. In the end, however, following two debates, the Seimas did not adopt it. The Seimas Commission on Ethics and Procedure and the first instance Administrative Court upheld the applicant association’s claims about defamatory and false statements made by a member of Seimas during the second debate. The appeal proceedings are still pending.

Law – Article 14 taken together with Article 9: The applicant association could be described as “religious” and the privileges granted to State-recognised religious associations fell within the ambit of Article 9. Thus, on the facts of the present case, Article 14 was applicable read in conjunction with Article 9.

(a) Whether there was a difference in treatment between persons in analogous or relevantly similar situations – The applicant association was in an analogous or relevantly similar situation to other non-traditional religious associations which had obtained a positive assessment from the Ministry of Justice. Several of those associations had been granted recognition by the Seimas. In the instant case, it transpired from the statements made by various Seimas’ members during the debates, as well as the Government’s submissions before the Court, that the refusal had been largely motivated by arguments relating to the substance of its religious beliefs. The differential treatment had thus been based on religious grounds.

(b) Whether the difference in treatment was justified – The Court first observed that none of the relevant domestic laws or case-law before it indicated the grounds on which the Seimas might refuse to grant State recognition to a religious association in respect of which the Ministry had adopted a favourable conclusion. Nor did they specify whether the Seimas might challenge the Ministry’s conclusion. This could lead to arbitrariness in decision-making but also restricted the ability of religious associations to find out with sufficient certainty the relevant criteria taken into account when deciding on their status and to demonstrate that they met them. Furthermore, the Seimas being a political body, the political nature of parliamentary proceedings entailed the risk that the granting or refusal to grant a particular status to a religious organisation might be related to political events and situations. Indeed, in the present case both the applicant association and the Government suggested that the impugned decision might have constituted a “personal revenge” on the part of some members of the Seimas against a specific politician, which pointed to the possibility of precisely that risk.

Notwithstanding, the Court had to limit itself to determining whether the manner in which the domestic law had been applied in the present gave rise to a violation of the Convention and not to take a decision in abstracto . In examining whether the refusal had been based on a reasonable and objective justification, its task was to determine whether the applicant association had been given a fair opportunity to apply for State recognition and whether the domestic law criteria had been applied in a non-discriminatory manner; not whether it should or should not have been granted such status. As the impugned decision did not include any reasons, the Court assessed the arguments given by members of the Seimas during the parliamentary debates. It found as follows:

– National security grounds : The alleged existence of links between the applicant association’s activities and the policies of the KGB or the Kremlin had not been supported by any relevant domestic authorities. Neither had the Government argued that the applicant association might have posed any risk to national security nor had the Court been made aware of any domestic proceedings as to any such possible risk.

– Doubts as to the “religious” nature of the applicant association’s activities and the existence of a “Baltic faith” : Neither the Seimas nor the Government had argued that the applicant association’s beliefs had not attained the requisite level of cogency, seriousness, cohesion and importance, or that the applicant association could be compared to any of the parody religions, such as Pastafarianism, Jediism, and Dudeism. The applicant association had been registered as a religious association and the relevant authorities had not challenged its religious nature until the impugned debates. Thus, the assessment by the Seimas had essentially questioned the legitimacy of the applicant association’s beliefs and the ways in which those beliefs were expressed, which, as the Court has repeatedly emphasised, was incompatible with the State’s duty of neutrality and impartiality.

– The applicant association’s actual or perceived relationship with Christianity : Several members of the Seimas had referred to the majority of Lithuanians being Catholic, the historical importance of Christianity in Lithuania, and the impact which the granting of State recognition to a pagan religious association could have on Lithuania’s relations with “the Christian world”. Moreover, without speculating as to its possible effect, a letter sent from the Lithuanian Bishops’ Conference had been circulated among more than a half of the members of the Seimas, had been explicitly referred to and its contents discussed during the second debate. In this connection, it was also relevant that when granting State recognition to other non-traditional religious associations, the Seimas, on several occasions, had pointed to their good relationship with the Catholic Church; in one such case a favourable a letter from a Catholic authority had also been put before the Seimas as an argument for granting State recognition. The authorities’ role, however, was not to remove the cause of tension by eliminating pluralism, but to ensure that the competing groups tolerate each other. Accordingly, the Court was unable to accept that the existence of a religion to which the majority of the population adhered, or any alleged tension between the applicant association and the majority religion, or the opposition of an authority of that religion, could constitute objective and reasonable justification for refusing State recognition to the applicant association. Furthermore, in line with the Constitutional Court’s case-law, the principle of the separation of church and State was the basis of the Lithuanians’ State secularism; the State had to be neutral in matters of conviction and did not have any right to establish a mandatory system of views. Lastly, with regard to the Government’s contention that in most Catholic countries of Europe no pagan movements enjoyed any sort of privileged status in their relationship with the State, the Court reiterated that the scope of the States’ margin of appreciation could not be broader or narrower, depending on the nature of the religious beliefs. Therefore, the difference in the treatment of the applicant association compared to that of other religious associations in a similar situation could not be justified by the nature of its faith.

In view of all the above, the State authorities had not provided a reasonable and objective justification for treating the applicant differently from other religious associations in a relevantly similar situation, and the members of the Seimas who had voted against the recognition had not remained neutral and impartial in exercising their regulatory powers.

Conclusion : violation (unanimously).

The Court also found a violation of Article 13 on account of the lack of an effective remedy with respect to the impugned decision of the Seimas.

Article 41: no claim for damages submitted.

(See also Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia and Others v. Moldova , 45701/99, 13 December 2001, Legal Summary ; Members of the Gldani Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Others v. Georgia , 71156/01, 3 May 2007, Legal Summary ; İzzettin Doğan and Others v. Turkey [GC], 62649/10, 26 April 2016, Legal Summary )

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