CASE OF ILIEVA AND OTHERS v. BULGARIA
No violation of Article 6 - Right to a fair trial (Article 6 - Civil proceedings;Article 6-1 - Fair hearing);Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Protection of property (Article 1 para. 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Peaceful enjoyment of possessions)
George Nicolaou;Guido Raimondi;Ledi Bianku;Nona Tsotsoria;Paul Mahoney;Zdravka Kalaydjieva
6. The applicants were born in 1928, 1949, 1958 and 1954 respectively. Mr Stanko Kalinov Stanev and Mr Kalin Tsvetanov Iliev live in Teteven and Mr Stanko Tsvetanov Iliev lives in Pleven. Ms Stanka Tsanova Ilieva also lived in Teteven. 7. Ancestors of the applicants owned agricultural land in the area of the village of Ribaritsa, Lovech region, which was collectivised after 1945. 8. In 1964 the municipal authorities in Lovech decided to allocate land for the construction of a hotel in Ribaritsa. The exact borders of the plot were specified in a decision delivered in 1984: it was one of the plots formerly owned by the applicants’ ancestors. In 1985 a proposal to formally expropriate the land from the agricultural co-operative in which it had been included earlier was rejected by a commission created by the Government. 9. The hotel was constructed between 1962 and 1968. It consisted of a main building ‒ comprising a restaurant and five bedrooms, ten bungalows and maintenance buildings. In the 1990s the complex also included an unfinished building, designed to be used as six bedrooms and a lounge, and a swimming pool. The plot of land on which it was constructed measured 8,182 square metres. 10. In March 1987 the local authorities in Lovech created a State-owned enterprise named “Pochivno delo na SO”, which was charged with the task, in particular, of using and managing the hotel in Ribaritsa. On 23 January 1995 the Minister of Agriculture ordered the creation of a State-owned limited liability company named “Pochivno delo na SSHP” EOOD, which took over the assets of the enterprise; under the applicable domestic provisions, this entailed the company becoming the owner of these assets. “Pochivno delo na SSHP” EOOD was entered in the companies register in Lovech on 1 March 1995. 11. In June 1996 the company initiated a procedure aimed at changing the status of the land on which the hotel was constructed, and which was still formally considered agricultural. The course of that procedure is unclear. 12. On 13 November 1998 the Minister of Agriculture issued an “act of State ownership” of the hotel and the land on which it was constructed. The document noted that the property had been included in the capital of “Pochivno delo na SSHP” EOOD. 13. In 1991, following the adoption of the Agricultural Land Act (“the ALA”), the applicants, who had inherited their ancestors in equal shares, applied for the restitution of the land formerly owned by them. 14. In a decision of 25 July 1995 the Teteven agricultural land commission (“the land commission”) restored the applicants’ property rights to several plots, including one of 8,290 square metres on which the hotel had been constructed. The decision referred to this plot as a “meadow”. 15. On 26 February 1996 the land commission issued a new decision concerning the applicants’ land, amending its previous one. In the new decision the commission did not mention the plot on which the hotel had been constructed, which, according to the applicable rules, was considered to amount to a tacit refusal to order restitution. 16. The applicants instigated proceedings for judicial review of the decision of 26 February 1996. In a final judgment of 9 April 1998 the Teteven District Court quashed the decision. It noted that in 1985 a proposal to expropriate the disputed plot from the agricultural co-operative had been rejected by the competent commission. It noted further that the procedure aimed at changing the land’s status initiated by “Pochivno delo na SSHP” EOOD had not been completed and that the plot had not yet been registered as State or municipally-owned. It concluded that the land commission had had no valid legal grounds on which to amend its decision of 25 July 1995 ordering restitution in kind, quashed its subsequent tacit refusal in that regard and restored the applicants’ property rights to the plot of land. 17. On the basis of the above judgment, on 5 March 1999 the applicants obtained a notarial deed. 18. On 7 August 1998 “Pochivno delo na SSHP” EOOD brought an action against the applicants, seeking a declaratory judgment to the effect that it was the owner of the plot of land at issue. The applicants brought a counter-claim for rei vindicatio. They argued that the hotel’s buildings were unlawful and that the land had never formally ceased to be considered agricultural. They based their claims to be the owners of the land on the land commission’s decision of 25 July 1995. 19. The case was examined by three levels of jurisdiction. The Supreme Court of Cassation’s final judgment was given on 19 January 2005. 20. The domestic courts found that “Pochivno delo na SSHP” EOOD had become the owner of the plot following its transformation into a Stateowned company in 1995, since the State enterprise of which it was the successor had previously used and managed that property. As to the applicants’ claims, the courts noted that they were based on the land commission’s decision of 25 July 1995. However, this decision, as well as the Teteven District Court’s judgment of 9 April 1998, were not binding on “Pochivno delo na SSHP” EOOD, as it had not been party to the restitution proceedings. The courts thus considered that they were free to conduct an “indirect judicial review” (косвен контрол) of the restitution decision and concluded that it was invalid as the preconditions for restitution in kind had not been met. This was so in particular in the light of the provision contained in section 10b of the ALA, which barred such restitution where a “complex of construction works” had been carried out on the land at issue. Section 10b did not require the construction works to have been lawful, since what mattered was the situation at the moment of the ALA’s entry into force. 21. Following the above developments, in a decision of 28 February 2006 the Teteven Agriculture and Forestry Department (former land commission) held that the applicants were entitled to compensation in lieu of restitution. In another decision of 6 April 2006 it held that the compensation would be effected through compensation bonds, with a face value of 5,360 Bulgarian levs (BGN). The applicants received the bonds on 20 December 2006. 22. The applicants sold the bonds in February 2013. They received, in total, BGN 2823.88.