Ewelina Dobrowolska: Lithuania will continue to be a leading country to promote the implementation of new legal instruments in the face of the war in Ukraine
At a meeting with the President of Eurojust, Ladislav Hamran, Minister of Justice Ewelina Dobrowolska discussed the new role of this institution in the context of the war in Ukraine and the importance of developing a legal mechanism to confiscate the proceeds of the frozen assets of russia and its entities and to use them for the reparation of damage and the rebuilding of Ukraine.
“The brutal aggression against Ukraine continues to have a major impact on EU policy-making and international cooperation in the field of justice. Today, the most important goal for all of us – the Member States and EU institutions – is to unite in stepping up our efforts to apply new legal instruments in the context of the military aggression in Ukraine. Together, we must look for possibilities of creating a legal mechanism to use the proceeds from the frozen assets of Russia and its entities to compensate for the damage and to rebuild Ukraine,” stressed Ms Dobrowolska at the meeting.
The Minister is convinced that the role of Eurojust is of particular importance in the context of the war in Ukraine, therefore, the measures discussed during today's discussion, the maximum efforts in collecting evidence of the war and other grave crimes and the database developed by Eurojust to preserve evidence of international crimes in Ukraine will contribute to a faster inevitable victory of justice over impunity.
Mr Ladislav Hamran stressed that Lithuania is one of the leading countries, the first in taking legal initiatives in the face of the war in Ukraine.
According to Ms Dobrowolska, Lithuania will continue to be a leading country in promoting the implementation of new legal instruments in the context of aggression in Ukraine. Our country has, a number of times, advocated for the need to set up a special tribunal and to use legal mechanisms to implement the obligations of the states under international law and to ensure the criminal liability of the Russian and Belarusian regimes. We hope that the discussions on the establishment of such a tribunal will continue and will produce tangible results in the near future.
Lithuanian initiatives in the wake of Russia's aggression against Ukraine
On 28 February 2022, Lithuania was the first to invoke Article 14 of the Rome Statute by requesting the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by russia and belarus. Understanding the challenges and the workload of this Court, Lithuania has also contributed additional EUR 100,000 for the activities of the Court.
On 1 March 2022, Minister of Justice Ewelina Dobrowolska, addressed the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Lithuania with a request to assess the aggression committed by the leaders of the russian federation and the Republic of belarus against Ukraine. The Lithuanian Criminal Code provides for liability and makes it possible to prosecute the perpetrators for the crime of aggression on the basis of the principle of universal jurisdiction, as well as sentence them in absentia. This pre-trial investigation has been opened.
On 4 March 2022, the EU Justice and Home Affairs Council agreed that the Member States strongly condemn the unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine by the aggressors and will seek to consolidate efforts to bring them to justice.
On 12 May 2022, the Ministry of Justice held an international conference of experts “Criminal Responsibility for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine: What are Options for Justice?”.
On 21 May 2022, the Minister of Justice formally addressed the Commissioner for Justice of the European Commission and the Ministers of Justice of the EU Member States, encouraging them to consider, at EU level, the establishment of a special tribunal to ensure the international criminal liability of the dictators of russia and belarus, as well as other persons who planned and are in command of the aggression in Ukraine. Since then, this issue has been consistently discussed in the EU Council and in a working group of representatives of the United Nations.
On 22 July 2022, Lithuania submitted an application to intervene in the proceedings instituted by the International Court of Justice under the Ukrainian application of 26 February 2022. In this way, Lithuania will contribute to the interpretation of international law in order to ensure that the Genocide Convention is correctly applied.
On 12 August 2022, the Republic of Lithuania submitted an application to intervene as a third part in the ECHR case Ukraine v. russia.