Court rejects residents’ appeal against Domeikava halfway houses

The Lithuanian Supreme Administrative Court has finally rejected residents’ appeal against the establishment of Kaunas Prison’s halfway houses in Domeikava, Kaunas District, LRT reported, citing BNS. The ruling cannot be appealed.

Residents had sought to have the Lithuanian Prison Service’s decision to begin operating the halfway houses in a specific building declared unlawful.

However, the court found that the Kaunas halfway houses are only one of the Lithuanian Prison Service’s operating locations and therefore did not require a separate establishment procedure, court spokesman Paulius Žeimys told BNS.

The court also ruled that although the legal framework was not sufficiently clear when the facility began operating, those shortcomings were not enough to declare the service’s actions unlawful.

The residents had appealed against an October 2024 decision by the Regional Administrative Court, which rejected their request to order the Lithuanian Prison Service to stop what they described as unlawful actions.

The halfway houses began operating at the end of 2023 in Šakiai village, which has merged with Domeikava. Local residents began protesting before the facility opened and appealed to several institutions, saying they feared the settlement would become unsafe.

The Supreme Administrative Court upheld the lower court’s decision, finding no basis to change or overturn it.