Sometimes, a single official’s subjective assessment can be the difference between legally enrolling in a program and being forced to suspend one’s studies before the semester has even begun.
This is what happened to a student from Kazakhstan who enrolled at one of Lithuania’s universities, met all the admission requirements, and applied to the Migration Department for a temporary residence permit in the Republic of Lithuania on the basis of her studies.
However, the Migration Department refused to issue it, and this decision was ultimately overturned by an administrative court.

For more on this, see the article by Robertas Narusevicius, a partner at “Leagus” and an attorney:

Sometimes, a single official’s subjective assessment can be the difference between legally enrolling in a program and being forced to suspend one’s studies before the semester has even begun. This is what happened to a student from Kazakhstan who enrolled at a Lithuanian university, met all the admission requirements, and applied to the Migration Department for a temporary residence permit in the Republic of Lithuania on the basis of her studies. However, the Migration Department refused to issue the permit, and the decision was ultimately overturned by an administrative court.

After paying the university application fee, submitting all the necessary application documents, and passing the university’s English language exam, the student decided to apply to the Migration Department for a temporary residence permit in Lithuania. However, the decision that was made surprised both her and legal experts.

“We decided to take the matter to court because, by issuing these conclusions, the Department of Migration deprived me of the opportunity to study at the university I had been lawfully admitted to. I still don’t understand what led to this decision,” says the student, who felt a great deal of stress and uncertainty throughout the entire process.

“Illogical Information,” a Sister in Lithuania, and an Assessment of the Official’s Remarks

Following an interview at the Department of Migration, the young woman received a negative decision, and the reason given was that during the interview, the foreign national provided unclear and illogical information, and also failed to indicate in the questionnaire that her sister lives in Lithuania.

In addition, the Migration Department employee who conducted the interview with the foreign national decided to assess her level of English, even though he had not been granted such authority. These arguments formed the basis for the Migration Department’s decision to deny the student a temporary residence permit in the Republic of Lithuania.

“After reviewing the decision and the transcript of the student’s interview submitted with it, I got the impression that the interview was evaluated in a completely subjective manner, without any substantiated evidence and using unclear decision-making criteria.Therefore, the foreign student decided to defend her violated rights and interests by filing a lawsuit in administrative court,” says attorney Robertas Naruševičius.

During the court proceedings, the Migration Department did not submit a reasoned response, nor did it refute the arguments in the foreign national’s complaint or the fact that there could be a risk of illegal migration. Furthermore, during the court hearing, it failed to provide a substantive explanation of what specific illogical information she had provided during the interview.  

“In light of these circumstances, it appears that the Department of Migration made an unfounded decision, and the criteria it applied were overly harsh toward the student,” the lawyer states.

The decision was based on a 2018 order, but case law emphasizes the supremacy of the law

In issuing the contested decision and asserting that the student’s situation could pose a risk of illegal migration, the Migration Department relied on the order of March 1, 2018 “On the Approval of the Procedure for Assessing the Criteria Used to Determine Whether There Are Serious Grounds to Believe That a Threat of Illegal Migration by a Foreign National May Arise.”

However, this practice followed by the Department of Migration is considered flawed, as case law in such cases very clearly states: any restrictions on a person’s rights may be established by law, and not, as in this case, on the basis of the “Description of Criteria” specified by the Migration Department.

According to R. Naruševičius, it is also worth noting that the Department of Migration made particularly active efforts to convince the court of the correctness of its decision and refused the student’s representative’s request to call witnesses who would have confirmed important details of the case.

The court granted the appeal, awarded costs, and the department did not appeal the decision 

The court granted the petitioner’s appeal and awarded her the litigation costs she had incurred. It should also be noted that the Department of Migration did not appeal the decision of the court of first instance. Once the decision became final, the Department reimbursed the applicant for her legal costs and resumed consideration of her application for a temporary residence permit in Lithuania. The case was handled fairly expeditiously and took only three months. Ultimately, the Migration Department decided to issue the foreign national a temporary residence permit in Lithuania.

Robertas Naruševičius, “Leagus” Law Firm