Constitutional Court
10 March 2014
Case No 16/98
Facts
The applicant, the Supreme Court of Lithuania, when examining the issues of disciplinary liability of judges, appealed to the Constitutional Court to clarify the interpretation of the Court's judgment’s of 21 December 1999 text: the guarantees of the independence of the judge and of the judiciary do not allow a judge, under the guise of such guarantees, to avoid the proper performance of his/her duties or the negligent handling of cases; judges must preserve the honour and prestige of their profession; the system of self-government of the judiciary must ensure that judges will perform their duties properly, and that any unlawful or unethical acts of a judge will be duly evaluated.
Court’s ruling
The Court noted that the constitutional principle of the independence of the judge and the judiciary does not exclude the possibility of imposing disciplinary liability on judges for avoiding the performance of their duties without a justifiable reason or for misconduct in the performance of their duties (including negligent handling of cases), but that the mere fact that a higher court, after reviewing a decision taken by the judge, has reversed or annulled it does not mean that there is a basis for imposing disciplinary liability on the judge and for their dismissal from office, on the grounds of a finding that their conduct has brought the judge's reputation into disrepute.
Repeated serious and obvious errors in the interpretation and application of the law, breaches of procedural law, shall constitute grounds for the self-governing body of the judiciary to assess the conduct of a judge as improper performance of their duties, as a lack of the requisite professional qualifications, to impose on the judge disciplinary liability, and to declare that their conduct has brought the judge's reputation into disrepute. The system of self-government of the judiciary must act in such a way as to make it possible to dismiss a judge whose conduct has brought a judge’s name into disrepute.
The procedural independence and autonomy of the judge is a prerequisite for an impartial and fair hearing; it is up to the court to decide how it should hear the case. No judge is, or may be, subordinate to any other judge or to the president of any court in the administration of justice. Only a higher court may review and modify or overrule a judge's decisions. It is the purpose of the judicial system to correct errors made by the lower courts and to prevent the perpetration of injustice, and justice is always done with the possibility of correcting a possible error.