STAMBOLSKA v. BULGARIA
Inadmissible
George Nicolaou;Ineta Ziemele;Krzysztof Wojtyczek;Ledi Bianku;Nona Tsotsoria;Paul Mahoney;Zdravka Kalaydjieva
1. The applicant, Mrs Evgenia Tsvetanova Stambolska, is a Bulgarian national, who was born in 1952 and lives in Pleven. She was represented before the Court by Mr M. Ekimdzhiev and Ms K. Boncheva, lawyers practising in Plovdiv. 2. The Bulgarian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Kotseva, of the Ministry of Justice. 3. The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows. 4. The applicant’s mother owned a three-storey house and a plot of land of 662 square metres, which were expropriated in 1948. 5. Following the enactment of the Compensation Law in 1997 (see paragraph 29 below), on 4 March 1998 the applicant and her brother requested compensation for their mother’s expropriated property. By a decision of 2 June 1998 the regional governor of Lovech dismissed the request insofar as it concerned the expropriated land, because it had already been subject to restitution, and held that in respect of the house, which had been demolished, the applicant and her brother were to receive compensation bonds. 6. The decision was served on the applicant on 18 February 2000. 7. On 2 March 2000 the applicant applied for judicial review of the above-mentioned decision. 8. In a judgment of 3 November 2000 the Pleven Regional Court (“the Regional Court”) quashed the regional governor’s decision in respect of the applicant and found that she was entitled to compensation for the land and house, to be provided both by transferring to her a share of a larger plot totalling 12,600 square metres, which adjoined the expropriated plot formerly owned by her mother, and by awarding her compensation bonds, the exact value of which would be determined at a later stage (see paragraph 31 below). 9. A limited liability company, N. OOD, joined the proceedings before the Regional Court, after it was accepted that the company had locus standi because it owned a share of the plot of land of 12,600 square metres. No other third party joined the proceedings at this time, despite the plot having several other co-owners. 10. All parties lodged appeals against the Regional Court’s judgment, but it was upheld by the Supreme Administrative Court (“the SAC”) on 17 September 2001. 11. The case was subsequently sent back to the Regional Court for the second stage of the proceedings, namely the determination of the exact amount of compensation to be awarded. In a judgment of 17 December 2001 the Regional Court held that the applicant was to receive 91.04% of the State-owned share of the larger plot and compensation bonds with a face value of 8,400 Bulgarian levs (BGN). 12. On 28 December 2001 the regional governor appealed to the SAC against the judgment of the Regional Court. However, the proceedings were stayed owing to the submission of several requests to have the first stage of the proceedings reopened (see below). 13. On 14 January 2002 the applicant’s brother lodged an application to set aside the Regional Court’s judgment of 3 November 2000, as upheld by the SAC on 17 September 2001, and to have the proceedings reopened. He referred to evidence which he considered to be newly discovered. His application was dismissed on 7 July 2002. 14. On an unspecified date, a Mr H.H. also applied to have the first stage of the proceedings reopened, arguing that, as a co-owner of the plot of 12,600 square metres, he was an interested party and should have been notified of the proceedings and given an opportunity to participate. He explained that he had become aware of the judgments of 3 November 2000 and 17 September 2001 in March 2002 when he had visited the local municipality. 15. On 14 December 2002 the SAC dismissed Mr H.H.’s application. 16. On 24 February 2003 Ms E.H., wife of Mr H.H., also applied to have the judgment of 3 November 2000 set aside and the proceedings reopened, arguing that she was also a co-owner of the plot and had been deprived of an opportunity to participate. She stated that she had become aware of the impugned judgment in February 2003 when she had visited the municipality. 17. On 28 March 2003 Ms D.K., a further co-owner of the plot of land, applied to have the proceedings reopened, putting forward arguments similar to those made by Ms E.H. Ms D.K. stated that she had become aware of the impugned judgment in March 2003. 18. On 17 April 2003 Mr H.H., Ms D.K. and the company N. OOD sent a letter to the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, urging it to propose that the proceedings be reopened, on the ground that some of the co-owners of the plot had not been given an opportunity to participate. The applicant alleged before the Court that their letter had actually been received by the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office exactly a year earlier and filed as part of her evidence a copy of the letter bearing the date 17 April 2002 next to the acknowledgment-of-receipt stamp. The Government, however, submitted a copy of the same letter together with a copy of the relevant entry of the register of documents filed with the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office, which were both dated 17 April 2003. 19. On 27 May 2003 the Deputy Chief Public Prosecutor introduced a proposal for the judgment of 3 November 2000 to be set aside and the proceedings to be reopened, noting that Ms E.H. and Ms D.K. had not been notified of the proceedings and given an opportunity to participate. He pointed out that the two women had become aware of the impugned judgment in February and March 2003, referring to a letter he had received at his office on 17 April 2003. 20. In a judgment of 25 July 2003 the SAC allowed the requests, set aside the Regional Court’s judgment of 3 November 2000 and reopened the proceedings. It considered that Ms E.H.’s and Ms D.K.’s applications had been lodged within the relevant three-month time-limit (see paragraph 33 below), as it had been impossible to establish with certainty the date upon which they had actually become aware of the impugned judgment. The SAC also found that since Ms E.H. and Ms D.K. were both co-owners of the above-mentioned plot of land they had a legitimate interest in the outcome of the contested proceedings, which had directly affected their rights and obligations. 21. The applicant lodged an appeal against the above-mentioned judgment, which was dismissed as inadmissible on 3 December 2003. 22. Following that, the SAC resumed examination of the regional governor’s appeal against the Regional Court’s judgment of 17 December 2001 (see paragraphs 11-12 above). On 12 February 2004, referring to its decision to reopen the first stage of the proceedings, it quashed the judgment and remitted the case to the Regional Court. 23. After it started re-examining the case, the Regional Court allowed several individuals and two companies to join the proceedings. It gave judgment on 11 May 2005. It again quashed the regional governor’s decision of 2 June 1998 and held that the applicant was entitled to receive compensation for her mother’s expropriated property by way of a share of the plot of land measuring 12,600 square metres in total, as well as through compensation bonds. 24. Two of the parties lodged an appeal. On 11 July 2006 the SAC upheld the Regional Court’s judgment. 25. The case was subsequently returned to the Regional Court for the second stage in the proceedings, namely the determination of the amount of compensation to be awarded to the applicant. The Regional Court gave judgment on 22 November 2007. In respect of the share of the plot of land measuring 12,600 square metres, it held that the applicant’s share could not exceed the State-owned share. However, it held that the relevant date on which it was to base its assessment of the State-owned share was 25 February 1992, because, pursuant to an express provision of the Compensation Law (see paragraph 29 below), any transfer of property after that date could not limit the interested parties’ entitlement to compensation. In 1992 the State-owned share of the plot had amounted to 5,705 square metres, and in 2007 it amounted to 1,822 square metres, the remainder of the land being the property of the other co-owners. The applicant was entitled to a share measuring 4,293.86 square metres, which meant that the shares of the remaining co-owners had to be reduced accordingly. In respect of the compensation bonds to be awarded to the applicant, the Regional Court awarded bonds with a face value of BGN 9,200. 26. Two of the parties lodged appeals against the above-mentioned judgment. The SAC held a hearing on 6 November 2008, following which the proceedings were stayed. 27. On 15 October 2008 Ms E.H. made an application to set aside the Regional Court’s judgment of 11 May 2005, as upheld by the SAC on 11 July 2006, and to have the first stage of the proceedings reopened. She referred to newly discovered evidence. On 12 February 2009 the application was dismissed as time-barred by a five-member panel of the SAC. It appears that a subsequent appeal by Ms E.H. to a seven-member panel of that court was dismissed on an unspecified date. 28. On an unspecified date the SAC resumed its examination of the two appeals against the Regional Court’s judgment of 22 November 2007 (see paragraphs 25-26 above). On 26 March 2010 it dismissed them. 29. After the fall of communism, the Bulgarian Parliament introduced a series of restitution laws and, in November 1997, the Law on Compensation for Owners of Nationalised Real Property (“the Compensation Law”), which provided, in cases where restitution had been impossible, for compensation to former owners of nationalised property or their heirs, through different means, such as transfer of State or municipally-owned shares in properties, or the award of compensation bonds. Requests under the Compensation Law were to be addressed to the regional governor or the relevant minister. 30. Once the regional governor had received such a request, the procedure unfolded in two stages. Firstly, the regional governor had to decide whether the interested parties were entitled to compensation. The regional governor then issued a second decision, based on an expert report, determining the amount of compensation to be awarded. The decisions taken at the different stages of the procedure were subject to judicial review. 31. The regional governor’s refusal to acknowledge the interested parties’ right to compensation is subject to judicial review in a two stage procedure; the first stage established the right to compensation and the means thereof, and the second determined the amount of compensation to be awarded. 32. Until 2006 the rules concerning judicial review of administrative measures were contained in the 1979 Administrative Procedure Act, which obliged the domestic court examining an appeal against an administrative measure to notify all interested parties of the appeal (section 41(2)); those parties could then join the proceedings and defend their rights. Similar provisions were contained in section 21(1) of the 1997 Supreme Administrative Court Act, in force until 2007. Since 2006, such matters have been regulated by the Code of Administrative Procedure, which contains similar requirements. 33. Before 2006 the conditions and procedure for judicial review proceedings were set out in the Code of Civil Procedure (Article 231 et seq.) A third party could apply to have such proceedings reopened in cases where they had been adversely affected by a final judgment and unduly deprived of the opportunity to participate in the proceedings. The requisite time-limit for parties to make applications for the reopening of proceedings was three months from the date upon which the third party became aware of the judgment at issue. According to the SAC’s settled practice, compliance with the three-month time-limit did not depend on the time which had passed since the judgment’s entry into force, because the third parties’ rights would otherwise be seriously undermined. 34. The relevant provisions of domestic law have been summarised in the Court’s decisions in the cases of Balakchiev and Others v. Bulgaria ((dec.), no. 65187/10, §§ 18-37, 18 June 2013) and Valcheva and Abrashev v. Bulgaria ((dec.), nos. 6194/11 and 34887/11, §§ 47-66, 18 June 2013).