Lithuanian Supreme Court ends case over neighbour recordings

The Supreme Court of Lithuania has overturned a woman’s conviction for unlawfully collecting information about her neighbours’ private lives and terminated the criminal case, LRT reported.

Lower courts had found that from May 2017 to December 2022, the woman secretly filmed and photographed her neighbours and their minor children from her home, recording their private residence and property. She stored the material until a search in February 2023. The courts convicted her of making and keeping 81 videos and 535 photographs.

The Supreme Court said the lower courts had relied largely on the number of recordings and the length of time they were made, without properly assessing the purpose and content of the material or whether it concerned private life and had been gathered unlawfully.

Some images, including those showing a fence between the properties or the entrance to the neighbours’ yard without other people present, did not contain information about private life, the court said. Other recordings showed activities such as work on cars in the yard or by a garage, and people riding quad bikes. Although this material could be considered information about private life, the woman had gathered it lawfully to document possible violations by her neighbours, the court found.

The case record showed that she had repeatedly complained to authorities about matters captured in the recordings, including cameras and lighting installed on the neighbouring property, the storage of oil, possible unregistered car repair work and related noise, and recurring noise from quad bikes near her home. The court said the fact that some complaints did not lead to findings of legal violations did not, by itself, remove her right to document suspected offences or threats to her legitimate interests.

The Supreme Court ruled that the lower courts had wrongly applied criminal law. Its decision is final and cannot be appealed.