Prospect of civil confiscation in Lithuania

Ši mokslo studija yra vieno iš jos autorių S. Bikelio tyrinėjimų tęsinys, ieškant, kaip būtų galima efektyviai atimti nusikalstamu būdu sukauptą turtą (visą ar bent dalį) iš asmenų, kurie jį įgijo, valdo arba saugo po priedanga, būdami fiktyvūs jo savininkai, ir kaip jį naudingai panaudoti. [...] Pagrindinis šio tyrimo klausimas – ar Lietuvos teisinėje sistemoje civilinio turto konfiskavimo mechanizmas suteiktų apčiuopiamos pridėtinės vertės, siekiant efektyviai paimti iš organizuotų, sunkių savanaudiškų, korupcinių nusikaltimų sukauptą turtą. Jam atsakyti skirti antrasis ir trečiasis darbo skyriai. Antrajame nagrinėjamas civilinio turto konfiskavimo santykis su mokestinėmis priemonėmis, bešeimininkio turto institutu, išplėstiniu turto konfiskavimu. Trečiajame analizuojamas pagrindinis civilinio turto konfiskavimo „konkurentas“ – neteisėto (neaiškaus) praturtėjimo kriminalizacija. Pastarajam skiriama didžioji šio darbo dalis. Joje apibendrinama teorinė ir konstitucinė šio klausimo problematika (anaiptol jam nepalanki), taip pat pateikiama kriminologinė ir teisinė pastarųjų ketverių metų teismų praktikos neteisėto praturtėjimo bylose analizė, kurios įžvalgos ir išvados, iš vienos pusės, suteikia šiek tiek praktinės šviesos vis dar teorinei (Lietuvos kontekste) civilinio turto konfiskavimo idėjai, o kartu dar sunkesniu akmeniu prislegia neaiškaus praturtėjimo kriminalizavimo idėją. Dar vienas šio tyrimo klausimų – tai civilinio turto konfiskavimo teisinės prigimties klausimas, nulemiantis šio proceso esminių nuostatų santykį su pamatiniais bendraisiais ir baudžiamosios justicijos principais. Tai kertinis civilinio turto konfiskavimo proceso akmuo, kurio nepadėjus, bandyti įgyvendinti šį procesą būtų pernelyg rizikinga.The study marks another milestone in the long run research of the confiscation based strategies aimed at the prevention of serious crime. The spectrum of the strategies of this kind has been within the academic focus of Skirmantas Bikelis since 2012. Skirmantas Bikelis with colleagues published a monograph on this topic in 2014. Later couple of articles have been published, including publication in Journal of Money Laundering Control147, that debated a specific strategy – the criminalization of illicit enrichment. The current study takes into focus two strategies – the civil confiscation (CC) and the aforementioned criminalization of illicit enrichment. The main research question in this study was if civil confiscation would contribute substantial added value to the prevention of serious greedy and organized crime and corruption in the Lithuanian legal system. Before coming to this question, the civil confiscation compliance with human rights standards had been re-examined. The issue of the legal nature of CC served as starting point for the examination. The analysis of the Engel criteria with the focus on the aims of CC allowed to reaffirm that within the meaning of the Article 6 of Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms legal nature of CC is civil, not criminal. This conclusion goes in line with the practice of the European Court of Human Rights and diminishes relevance of the presumption of innocence in the CC proceedings. The practice of the ECHR also defines the main areas (serious organized crime, corruption) where CC could be considered as the proportionate interference with the peaceful enjoyment of person’s possessions. The question of the added value of the CC was approached by discussing the existing strategies of expropriation of property. Firstly, expropriation of ownerless things was discussed. This strategy is being increasingly used in the investigations of suspicious funds flows (in the cases of suspected money laundering). This strategy turns out to be efficient but it does not compete with CC. The first focuses on the cases where the genuine ownership of the funds may not be established and the second focuses on the origin of the property with the established ownership. Later, tax proceedings and measures are discussed. Lithuanian tax laws provide the tax inspectorate with the authority to impose tax fines to the owners of the unexplained wealth. The fine may amount from 50 to 100 per cent of income tax duties. Thus in total tax measures enable the State to claim up to nearly 50 per cent of unexplained property’s value. The specific rules of evidence that shift the burden of proof on a respondent and allow indirect and even statistics based evaluation of his or her income enable tax inspectorate run very fast and efficient tax proceedings. It makes huge advantage for tax proceedings comparing to any other strategy. However, the value of the unexplained property that might be claimed in the tax proceedings cannot amount to the value that might be claimed in the CC proceedings. Also, some doubts rise if such proceedings, in case they resulted in withdrawal of very significant share of respondent’s property, on one hand, still constituted fair proceedings and, on the other, were compatible with the principle of proportionality. Considering grounds for CC provided in the draft of the law on Illegal Enrichment Prevention and provisions on the extended confiscation in Lithuanian penal code, the enforcement area of CC and the extended confiscation would overlap in the most serious cases, where value of property would exceed 100 000 Eur and where property would be related to serious profitable crime, organized crime or corruption. The preference for the CC proceedings is recommended in these cases. This finding is based on the assumption that rules of evidence in the CC proceedings are by some degree more efficient than rules in the proceedings on extended confiscation. In addition, the possibility to run the confiscation proceedings independently from the criminal proceedings provides significant practical advantages. The advantage of CC over criminalization of illicit enrichment leaves no room for a doubt. It even does not make much sense to compare these directly competing strategies as we find the concept of criminalization of illicit enrichment erroneous. [...