Communicated on 5 November 2019
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 15152/18
Tadas PASLAVIČIUS
against Lithuania
lodged on 21 March 2018
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The applicant worked as an in-house lawyer at the Trakai district municipality. He was made redundant on the ground that the municipality already had four in-house lawyers on its staff which was sufficient to meet its needs. The applicant’s lawsuit for reinstatement was dismissed by courts. He points out that the municipality had already had an adequate number of in-house lawyers on its staff who, instead of an externally hired advocate, could have effectively represented the municipality’s interests in court in those not particularly complex labour litigation proceedings. The applicant, however, had been unemployed during that litigation, and had no advocate to represent his interests.
The application concerns the applicant’s complaint that he had not had the right of access to court on account of the domestic courts’ decisions to oblige him to compensate the advocate’s legal costs – more than 2,000 euros – incurred by the Trakai district municipality in the labour litigation proceedings for lifting the applicant’s disciplinary penalties and for his reinstatement. The applicant complains, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, that he, as a weaker party, was not supposed to bear those costs, which more than fivefold exceeded his monthly salary at that municipality before his dismissal. The court imposed obligation to bear the municipality’s litigation costs had thus placed him in particularly grave financial situation and had been disproportionate.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a breach of the applicant’s right to access to court, as provided for in Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, on account of the fact that the courts ordered him to compensate the legal expenses incurred by the Trakai district municipality during administrative court proceedings when contesting the applicant’s dismissal from that municipality and in other related administrative proceedings for disciplinary penalties (see, mutatis mutandis, Steel and Morris v. the United Kingdom, no. 68416/01, §§ 59-62, ECHR 2005‑II, and Handölsdalen Sami Village and Others v. Sweden, no. 39013/04, §§ 51-59, 30 March 2010)?
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