Avenue de l'Europe
Jėčius v. Lithuania 
| 2000
The Jėčius case was very important from the legal point of view and revealed a serious problem as regards the legality of the preventative detention, as well as a denied access to a court and the right to defence.
Danutė Jočienė, Judge of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania, former judge of the European Court of Human Rights, writing in "The Impact of the ECHR on Democratic Change in Central and Eastern Europe"
Juozas Jėčius was a hotel director. He was detained for over 14 months whilst awaiting trial for murder. He complained that there was no evidence connecting him to the crime. Nevertheless, the authorities refused to release him. When his case eventually came to trial, Mr Jėčius was acquitted.
The European court ruled that there had never been any proper evidence linking Mr Jėčius to the crime. Furthermore, certain periods of his detention had never been ordered by any Lithuanian court. In these circumstances, the authorities had violated Mr Jėčius’s right to liberty.
Following the judgment, in 2002 the parliament adopted a new code on criminal procedure partly to improve compliance with the case law of the European Court of Human Rights.
The law changed the rules on pre-trial detention, to help prevent this situation from happening again. It listed circumstances when pre-trial detention could be justified, set rules about the time limits of such detention and established a procedure where a detainee could challenge it in court.
Sergey Solovyev lost three years of his life in a cell, after being falsely accused of manslaughter. At one point his detention was extended without an order from a judge and contrary to Russian law. The European court ruled that Mr Solovyev’s right to liberty had been breached. Russia changed its criminal laws to prevent unlawful detention orders and protect the right to liberty.
Wrongfully accused of murder and attempted burglary, Andrzej Leszczak was detained for almost three years before being acquitted at trial. The European court ruled that the Polish authorities had not given proper reasons for holding him and had not explored different ways of making sure he attended his trial. Following a series of such cases, Poland changed laws to protect liberty rights.
Locked in a windowless cell, I. I. spent 3 months in pre-trial detention for a crime he did not commit. After he developed various illnesses, the charges against I.I. were dropped because of a lack of evidence and he was released. Following a series of similar cases, the law in Bulgaria was changed to protect people’s right to liberty.
Lithuania
Russian Federation*
Poland
Bulgaria