The Witness That Cannot Survive Cross-Examination, Part III

The legal architecture and the seven exits that are not exits

Parts I and II tried LGGRTC through institutional impeachment and through the witness’s own documents. Both, in my view, weigh against the institution before it reaches the stand. Part III examines the legal architecture under which the Fridman court will operate. The procedural mechanism by which Lithuanian courts have shielded LGGRTC. A 2020 Lithuanian Supreme Administrative Court ruling that, in my view, undercuts LGGRTC’s use as state-certified evidence in criminal proceedings. The Ethics Inspector classification that the Lithuanian state designed to weaken a Jewish complainant and that, applied consistently, now runs in his favor. Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights. And the seven paths the Lithuanian government can take from here, each carrying its own exposure.

I write as a documentary filmmaker who has spent five years recording the Baltic Holocaust, and as a former Soviet citizen who recognizes the institutional architecture of official truth. The arguments this piece sets out are not novel legal theories. They are, in my view, the consistent application of Lithuania’s own prior rulings and the Convention obligations the Lithuanian state has accepted.

Procedure one way, substance the other

The deeper courtroom issue is directional. In Grant Gochin’s cases against LGGRTC, Lithuanian courts did not test the Center’s historical findings on the merits. They disposed of the claims procedurally. The pattern is documented in The Procedural Dismissal Catalogue and in the Lithuania litigation inventory. The Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania ruled on April 1, 2020 that LGGRTC’s historical publications fall outside administrative-law jurisdiction. The Vilnius Regional Court ruled on June 8, 2020 that the constitutional remedy did not reach the Jewish complainant. The Supreme Commission for Public Service Ethics cleared LGGRTC Director General Burauskaitė. The Office of the President referred the matter back to LGGRTC. The Seimas Ombudsman found merit and produced no remedy. The Journalist Ethics Inspector issued decision S-424 of April 25, 2022, ruling against the Jewish complainant on procedural grounds. The state institution was protected from substance, repeatedly, across multiple regulators and courts, over more than a decade.

Fridman’s case appears to reverse the direction. When the Jew is the plaintiff, procedure blocks substance. When the Jew is the defendant, state memory becomes substance. The pattern is described in The Selective Enforcement Index and The Soviet Court That Never Left. Lithuania’s courts have narrowed the issue when the state must answer, and enlarged it when the citizen must be exposed. That asymmetry, in my view, is not the rule of law. The legal architecture that follows is the consequence of that asymmetry being made visible.

The argument from Lithuania’s own Supreme Administrative Court

The Supreme Administrative Court’s April 1, 2020 ruling does more than insulate LGGRTC from civil review. In my view, the same reasoning undercuts the use of LGGRTC’s outputs as state-certified evidence in criminal proceedings. The argument requires no novel legal theory. It requires only that the court apply its own prior ruling consistently.

The ruling held that LGGRTC’s historical publications fall outside administrative-law jurisdiction. The........

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