DISSENTING OPINION OF JUDGE BOÅ NJAK

1. To my regret, I cannot agree with the position of the majority in this case regarding the lack of reasoning of the administrative courts in respect of the alleged political and media pressure in the domestic proceedings conducted against the applicant (see paragraphs 140–44 of the judgment).

2. Both in her action before the first-instance court and in her appeal before the Supreme Administrative Court, the applicant raised the argument that the fairness of the proceedings had been prejudiced by public statements of politicians and by media reporting. The Court acknowledges that the domestic courts failed to address this argument in an explicit manner (paragraphs 142 and 144 of the judgment). In my opinion, this is an understatement, allowing an outside observer to assume that at least an implicit answer was provided. However, I believe it is fair to say that the courts of the respondent State failed to address the applicant ’ s argument in any way at all.

3. While the majority find the lack of an (explicit) answer to the applicant ’ s complaint to be disconcerting (paragraph 142 of the judgment), they nevertheless do not consider that this particular omission would suffice for a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention to be found. In their view, the following grounds speak for such a position:

(a) the domestic courts addressed the applicant ’ s main arguments;

( b) the applicant formulated her complaint before the domestic courts in a rather general way;

( c) the domestic courts provided detailed reasons to justify the decision to give her a disciplinary penalty;

(d) the Court has concluded that the independence and impartiality of the administrative courts were not compromised by public statements of State officials and politicians;

(e) the failure of the domestic courts to explicitly address the applicant ’ s argument did not render the proceedings, taken as a whole, unfair.

I disagree with this view for the reasons stated below.

4. The applicant ’ s argument, as formulated both before the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, was clearly articulated and supported by evidence that she considered to substantiate her claim (see paragraphs 52 and 61 of the judgment in connection with paragraphs 38, 39 and 44). She expressly claimed that the decision to demote her had been influenced by public statements made by the politicians. She referred to the specific content of those statements and submitted examples. Her submissions were clear enough for both domestic courts to understand the essence of, and the grounds for, her complaint, which in turn put those courts under an obligation to consider it properly. In the light of the majority ’ s argument outlined above in point (b), it is difficult to discern from their reasoning what more the applicant should have brought before the domestic courts in order to trigger the obligation for those courts to reply. Equally, it should not be overlooked that the applicant repeated her complaint before the Court, which in turn has not found it to be insufficiently substantiated for an examination on the merits. Instead, it has rightly declared the complaint admissible and has explicitly examined it on nine pages. I believe that the same requirement should be found to apply domestically.

5. Furthermore, and regarding the majority ’ s argument under (a), I believe that a failure to address one of the relevant legal and/or factual arguments by a party to the proceedings cannot be remedied by properly examining the other complaints. This is all the more true when the complaints and arguments are not directly interconnected. A complaint that public statements by high-ranking politicians were incompatible with the notion of an independent and impartial tribunal within the meaning of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention is a self-standing complaint (see, for example, Sovtransavto Holding v. Ukraine , no. 48553/99, 25 July 2002, and Kinsk ý v. the Czech Republic , no. 42856/06, 9 February 2012). Even if it appears that procedural steps in a given case were duly taken and that the outcome of the proceedings cannot be reproached as such, public statements may, in view of their content and the manner in which they were made, entail a violation of the above-mentioned Convention provision. For this reason, any such complaint cannot be considered as “lateral” (as opposed to “main complaint”, in the language of the majority) and should properly be addressed by a court before which it is brought.

6. Equally, and in respect of the majority ’ s argument under (c) above, the fact that in a sufficiently reasoned view of the domestic courts, the outcome of the proceedings (namely the applicant ’ s demotion) was justified, cannot remedy the fact that those courts failed to address the applicant ’ s argument about the alleged political and media pressure in her case. What is at stake is not actual proof of pressure or of its influence upon the decision taken, but the appearance of impartiality (see, mutatis mutandis , Kinsk ý , cited above, § 98). Thus an outcome may be perfectly correct, but a violation can still be indicated, if the relevant conditions are met. They are of course to be thoroughly examined, an exercise which the Court has performed in this judgment, whilst the domestic courts failed to do the same.

7. Similarly, while I agree with the majority that the independence and impartiality of the domestic courts were not prejudiced by the public statements made by the politicians and the media in the applicant ’ s case, I believe that this fact did not absolve those courts from addressing the applicant ’ s complaint to that effect. To hold otherwise would mean that the domestic courts are under an obligation to respond only to those arguments of a party which are well-founded, a position that would be wholly unacceptable from the point of view of protection against arbitrariness, which is at the heart of the concept of fairness, as embodied by Article 6 of the Convention. According to the Court ’ s case-law, the domestic courts are under an obligation to deal with those arguments which, if upheld, would be decisive for the outcome of the case (see Ruiz Torija v. Spain, 9 December 1994, Series A no. 303 ‑ A). As the applicant ’ s argument, if successful, could have changed the course of the case domestically, I unfortunately cannot subscribe to the majority ’ s argument outlined above under (d).

8. Finally, the argument of the majority that the omission of the Lithuanian administrative courts did not render the proceedings as a whole unfair (see under (e) above) is in my opinion inconsistent with the well-established approach of the Court. Notably, a single failure to comply with the obligation of domestic courts to provide reasons for dismissing a relevant submission of a party has sufficed for the Court to find a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see, in the context of failure to provide reasons for not referring a case to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling, Schipani and Others v. Italy , no. 38369/09, 21 July 2015, and Baltic Master Ltd. v. Lithuania [Committee] , no. 55092/16, 16 April 2019). Introducing a requirement that the fairness of the proceedings as a whole be tested in order to establish a violation goes beyond existing case-law and I therefore find it hard to support this position.

9. The omission of both the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court and of the Supreme Administrative Court is all the more serious as the applicant ’ s complaint did not pertain (only) to relevant issues of fact or domestic law, but (also) to alleged political and media pressure in her case which, if confirmed, would entail a self-standing violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.

10. In sum, I believe that the repeated failure of the respondent State ’ s domestic courts to address a relevant and substantiated argument submitted by the applicant was incompatible with the prohibition of arbitrariness and therefore constituted a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention.