We are delighted that the Research Council of Lithuania, under its funding measure “Researcher Groups Projects”, has granted financial support to the project implemented by the Law Institute of the Lithuanian Centre for Social Sciences – “Hope of release: The Implementation and Impact of Life Imprisonment in Lithuania” (IMPACT). The project will be carried out by the Law Institute research team during the period from 12 November 2025 to 28 April 2028.

In 2019, amendments to legislation were adopted in Lithuania granting persons serving life imprisonment the right to apply for the commutation of this sentence to a fixed-term custodial sentence of between five and ten years, provided that they have already served at least 20 years of their sentence and meet other requirements established by the court. Nevertheless, the two-tier life sentence commutation procedure implemented by the Lithuanian legislator has raised significant concerns regarding its adherence to the European Court’s (ECtHR) criteria in practice, and its capacity to provide institutional (as opposed to transformative) hope for individuals serving life sentences.

During the implementation of the IMPACT project, a multi-method and interdisciplinary approach will be applied to critically examine the evolution of Lithuania’s ultimate penalty since the abolition of the death penalty through to the ECtHR’s decision, and assess its current implementation from the perspective of frontline practitioners. In addition, the project will explore the lived experiences of life imprisonment through interviews with persons sentenced to life imprisonment and prison staff. By going beyond prison walls and seeking to understand the everyday realities of both practitioners and convicted persons, the IMPACT project team will also aim to determine the extent to which the new commutation procedure offers a realistic hope of release.

The research team of the project consists of: Dr Catherine Appleton (Project leader), Prof. Dr Artūras Tereškinas, Assoc. Prof. Dr Simonas Nikartas, PhD student Goda Dainauskaitė, and Ieva Ruzgytė.

The project is funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), Contract No. S-MIP-25-78.

More information about the project here.