Lithuanian court rejects whistleblower’s challenge to contract non-renewal

Lithuania’s Supreme Administrative Court has rejected former army officer Jonas Virbalis’s challenge to the non-renewal of his military service contract, ruling that his whistleblower status did not prevent the decision if it was unrelated to his report. LRT reported that the ruling is final.

Virbalis had told his commanders and later the Prosecutor General’s Office that volunteer soldiers in the National Defence Volunteer Force’s 2nd unit may have been called up for exercises on paper without attending, with the resulting payments allegedly put into an agreed “fund”. The Prosecutor General’s Office granted him whistleblower status in 2023 and referred the inquiry to the Ministry of National Defence.

A ministry commission found no reliable evidence of violations, but made recommendations to improve the unit’s work. The ministry and the Lithuanian Armed Forces said the decision not to renew Virbalis’s fixed-term contract was within the army chief’s discretion.

Virbalis, then a lieutenant and intelligence officer at the 2nd unit’s headquarters, argued in court that the contract was not renewed because he reported the suspected scheme. In May 2024, then army chief Valdemaras Rupšys decided not to extend the contract after it expired.

The court said the decision was based on the objective circumstance that the fixed-term contract had ended. It also ruled that whistleblower status does not oblige an employer to retain someone if the employer demonstrates that the decision was unrelated to a report of possible wrongdoing. The Whistleblower Protection Law includes non-renewal of a fixed-term contract among actions that may constitute negative treatment.

After the contract ended, Virbalis also faced a reprimand that was later annulled, changes to his access to his unit’s grounds, a search of his car, denied days off to care for his children, and a transfer to Panevėžys before being moved back to Kaunas, according to LRT.