2024-04-10 04:36:14
“LAT decided to annul the Kaunas District Court‘s verdict and the Kaunas District Court’s verdict and terminated the criminal case against A. Krupavičius. The civil lawsuit was left unexamined”, Rimantė Kraulišė, the representative of the Supreme Court for relations with the public and the media, told the news portal lrytas.lt.
A. Krupavičius was found guilty by the courts of two lower instances: the Kaunas district court awarded him 5 thousand. EUR fine, which the Kaunas District Court reduced to 3.7 thousand. euros.
The professor complained against the unfavorable verdicts, requesting the annulment of the Kaunas district court’s verdict and the termination of the criminal case. He did not convince the Kaunas judges, he was found guilty, but the situation turned upside down when the case ended up in the capital.
According to the prosecutor’s office, A. Krupavičius publicly published a scientific work on behalf of himself and Kaunas University of Technology researcher Vitalija Simonaitytė, using parts of the work of another author, Giedrius Žvaliauskas, ie, according to the officials, the authorship was appropriated.
The process lasted several years. The Supreme Court made a decision in favor of the political scientist.
The panel of judges of the Supreme Court that examined A. Krupavičius’ complaint noted that copyright and their legal defense mechanisms are primarily a matter of civil law regulation.
“The appropriation of authorship specified in Article 191, Part 1 of the Criminal Code, for which criminal liability is established, without establishing any additional signs of the danger of such a civil delict, leads to the fact that the courts, when deciding on the criminality of the act, must assess not only the formal compliance of the act with Article 191, Part 1 of the Criminal Code for the signs of the established criminal act, but also the dangerousness of the act.
The panel of judges, having assessed the actual circumstances of this case (appropriation of authorship established by court decisions, is an appropriated part of the scientific article of the co-author, i.e. the text (work) prepared by G. Žvaliauskas was used in the chapter of the publicly published book “Organizational Structures of Political Parties in Central and Eastern European Countries” “Organization of Political Parties: The Case of Lithuania”, the case does not claim compensation for pecuniary damage, it has not been established that academic dishonesty is related to unjustified enrichment at the expense of another person’s legitimate interests or for other selfish purposes), decided that in the case under consideration A. Krupavičius is subject to criminal charges liability for appropriation of authorship would violate the principle of criminal law as an ultima ratio (last resort).
The Supreme Court of Lithuania overturned the verdicts of the lower courts and terminated the criminal case against A. Krupavičius, and left the civil lawsuit of G. Žvaliauskas unexamined,” according to the statement issued by the representative of the Supreme Court, R. Kraulišė, on Tuesday.
2024-04-10 04:36:14