Legal challenge delays removal of Salomėja Nėris monument as lawyers seek judges’ recusal

A court hearing over the controversial removal of a monument to poet Salomėja Nėris in Vilnius was postponed on Tuesday after lawyers for the plaintiffs challenged the judges presiding over the case, LRT reports.

The Vilnius Regional Administrative Court had scheduled a hearing on a lawsuit filed by the poet’s granddaughter, Salomėja Bučaitė, the Lithuanian Creators’ Association, and lawyer Liudvikas Ragauskis. They are seeking to overturn a 2024 decision by the Lithuanian Genocide and Resistance Research Centre to remove the monument from central Vilnius.

The hearing could not proceed after Ragauskis filed a motion to recuse judge Violeta Petkevičienė, arguing she had previously expressed an opinion on the case’s admissibility—a matter he claimed should only be assessed during substantive proceedings. The remaining judges rejected the recusal request, stating that procedural actions did not justify her removal.

Judge Jovita Einikienė warned the parties against abusing procedural rights and urged timely submissions, noting that the hearing date had been known since January. Ragauskis then expanded his challenge to the entire judicial panel, arguing that Petkevičienė’s presence in the courtroom invalidated the proceedings. Bučaitė, participating remotely from abroad, supported the recusal.

With the decision on the panel’s recusal now resting with the court president, the hearing was adjourned. If the challenge is dismissed, the case will resume on May 12 with the same judges.

The defendants in the administrative case—the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre—opposed the recusal motions. Third-party stakeholders include the Cultural Heritage Department and the Vilnius City Municipality.

The plaintiffs argue that removing the monument violates their rights and legal protections, obstructing public efforts to promote Nėris and her legacy through artistic means. They claim the decision amounts to censorship.

The dispute centres on a 1974 bust of Nėris, erected near Vilnius’s Vyčio Gymnasium (then named after the poet). Lithuania’s Desovietisation Commission ruled last year that the monument should be relocated to a museum, classifying it as ideological. Critics, including public figures and literary scholars, have dismissed the commission’s reasoning as flawed, noting Nėris’s tenuous ties to Vilnius and disputing claims that the monument itself is ideological.

Nėris remains a polarising figure in Lithuania due to her role in advocating for the country’s incorporation into the Soviet Union during the occupation period.