The Principle of Legality and the Crime of Genocide: Drelingas v Lithuania

Abstract

On 12 March 2019, a Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or ‘European Court’) rendered its judgment in Drelingas v Lithuania1 concerning the application of the nullum crimen sine lege principle, enshrined in Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), with regard to the crime of genocide.2 The applicant had worked as a Senior Officer of the Soviet Union’s state security agency the MGB (which later became the well-known KGB) at the time of the offence for which he was convicted, which took place on 12 October 1956 when he took part in an operation to capture two Lithuanian partisans. The operation succeeded: the partisans were detained and sentenced, one to death and the other to deportation to Siberia. After Lithuania regained its independence in 1991, the applicant was prosecuted and found guilty of being an ‘accessory to genocide’ under Articles 24(6)3 and 99 of the 2003 Lithuanian Criminal Code. The applicant started proceedings against Lithuania before the European Court arguing that his conviction was based on a retroactive application of criminal law and, therefore, violated Article 7 of the ECHR. The Court eventually, by a majority of five to two votes, found that his conviction did not violate Article 7.