FOURTH SECTION

DECISION

Applications nos. 21757/08 and 27872/08
Vanko Hristov RUSEV against Bulgaria
and Elena Staneva STOYANOVA against Bulgaria

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting on 4 December 2012 as a Committee composed of:

Päivi Hirvelä, President,
Zdravka Kalaydjieva,
Paul Mahoney, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the appended applications, communicated as part of the grouped communication in Tsochev and 15 other applications v. Bulgaria (no. 45334/06 and others),

Having regard to the declarations submitted by the respondent Government requesting the Court to strike the applications out of the list of cases and the applicants’ replies to the declarations,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

PROCEDURE

The applicants are Bulgarian nationals whose names and dates of birth are specified in the appended table. The second applicant was legally represented by Mr L. Novikov. The Bulgarian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Dimova, of the Ministry of Justice.

The applicants expressly or in substance complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention about the length of criminal proceedings against them. Relying on Article 13 of the Convention, the first applicant also complained of the lack of effective remedies in relation to the length of the proceedings.

The essential information as to the length of the proceedings in which the applicants were involved is indicated in the attached table.

On 26 March 2012 the President of the Fourth Section decided to communicate the applicants’ complaints to the Bulgarian Government.

THE LAW

The Court considers that in accordance with Rule 42 § 1 of the Rules of Court, the applications should be joined, given their common legal background.

After the failure of attempts to reach a friendly settlement, by letters dated 20 September 2012 and 21 September 2012 the Government informed the Court that they proposed to make unilateral declarations with a view to resolving the issues raised by the applications. By these declarations the Government acknowledged the excessive length of the criminal proceedings and the lack of effective remedies in respect of the length.

The Government invited the Court to strike the applications out of the list of cases. They suggested that the declarations might be accepted by the Court as “any other reason” justifying the striking out of the cases of the Court’s list, as referred to in Article 37 § 1 (c) of the Convention.

The declarations also provided that the compensation sums were to cover any pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, as well as, costs and expenses, where applicable, and would be free of any taxes that may be chargeable, to be converted into the national currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement. The sums would be payable within three months from the date of notification of the decision taken by the Court pursuant to Article 37 § 1 of the European Convention on Human Ri