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MINISTERS’ DEPUTIES |
Decisions |
CM/Del/Dec(2021)1419/H46-21 |
2 December 2021 |
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1419th meeting, 30 November – 2 December 2021 (DH)
H46-21 Beizaras and Levickas v. Lithuania (Application No. 41288/15) Supervision of the execution of the European Court’s judgments
Reference document |
Decisions
The Deputies
1. recalled that this case concerns the refusal, due to discriminatory attitudes, to launch a pre-trial investigation into the applicants’ allegations of having been subjected to extreme homophobic online hate speech in 2014, and the lack of an effective domestic remedy;
As regards individual measures
2. considered that no further individual measures are necessary given that the just satisfaction has been paid and that the authorities reviewed and quashed their initial refusal to launch a pre-trial investigation into the applicants’ complaints of homophobic hate speech found to be contrary to the Convention, launched an investigation ex officio and have progressed rapidly with it;
As regards general measures
3. noted with satisfaction the wide-ranging and multi-faceted measures taken by the authorities to improve investigations into hate crimes and hate speech, including the adoption of new methodological recommendations, the specialisation of prosecutors and the review of previous decisions to examine whether bias-motivation was an element of a crime or there were any causal links with discrimination; invited the authorities to take all the necessary measures to ensure the effective implementation of the new recommendations in practice;
4. noted with interest the evolution of the domestic case-law, the capacity-building measures for investigative authorities taken and the statistics indicating an increase of hate crime investigations in recent years;
5. encouraged the authorities to continue their efforts to identify and eliminate the challenges in investigating and prosecuting hate crimes and to continue with the training and awareness raising of law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges, possibly drawing on the Council of Europe’s expertise in order to ensure a Convention compliant application of the hate crime legislation, in order to ensure the sustainability of the progress achieved so far;
6. welcomed the preventive measures taken by the Lithuanian authorities so far and their determination to continue to monitor and improve their response to hate crimes and hate speech; encouraged them to pursue their efforts, in particular, to finalise their comprehensive strategic plan to address both prevention of and response to hate crimes and hate speech and to work on measures to improve registration and data collection on hate crimes;
7. invited the authorities to submit a consolidated action plan/report including all relevant developments and an assessment of the impact in practice of the measures taken so far, as well as information on any additional measures envisaged to monitor the effectiveness of investigations into hate crimes and hate speech in the future, by the end of June 2023 at the latest;
8. in light of the progress of the individual and general measures taken so far, decided to continue the examination of this case under the standard procedure.