Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania
28 October 2011
Complaint
The applicant requested that the deadline for filing an appeal be extended.
Court‘s ruling
If the deadline for filing an appeal has been missed, the appellate court may, at the appellant's request, renew the deadline for filing the appeal if it is recognised that the deadline was missed for an important reason. Only objective circumstances beyond the appellant's control that prevented them from applying to the court in time for the protection of their violated rights shall be considered valid reasons for missing the deadline.
Having assessed the reasons for missing the deadline indicated in the applicant's request, the Court found that these circumstances did not objectively prevent the applicant from applying to the court in time. The fourteen-day deadline for filing an appeal was set by the legislator as sufficient, based on an objective assessment of the possibility of preparing such a procedural document (regardless of the scope or complexity of the case). Comparing the time that passed between the court decision being announced and getting a copy of it to the time that passed between when the applicant said they wrote the appeal and when they could have filed it is irrelevant. The applicant's participation in other court proceedings and non-judicial procedures in defence of his rights, and his related preoccupation, in no way justify the failure to meet the deadline for filing an appeal. This is essentially a pattern of behaviour subjectively chosen by the applicant himself.