FIRST SECTION

DECISION

AS TO THE ADMISSIBILITY OF

Application no. 53367/99
by Snejana Avramova STOYANOVA and Kosta Kanchev IVANOV
against Bulgaria

The European Court of Human Rights (First Section), sitting on 12 May 2005 as a Chamber composed of:

MrC.L. Rozakis, President,
MrL. Loucaides,
MrsF. Tulkens,
MrP. Lorenzen,
MrsN. Vajić,
MrsS. Botoucharova,
MrD. Spielmann, judges,
and Mr S. Nielsen, Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 12 November 1999,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicants,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

The applicants, Mrs Snejana Avramova Stoyanova and her husband Mr Kosta Kanchev Ivanov, are Bulgarian nationals, who were born in 1927 and 1926 respectively and live in Sofia. They were represented before the Court by Mrs Z. Kalaidjieva, a lawyer practising in Sofia.

The respondent Government were represented by their agent Mrs M. Dimova, of the Ministry of Justice.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

A. The particular circumstances of the applicants' case

By virtue of section 7 of the Restitution Law and through judicial decision of 1999 the applicants' title to their apartment (in which the first applicant's mother and then her family had lived since the mid-1950s and had purchased it from the local municipality in 1971) was declared null and void. Ownership thereof was bestowed back to the heirs of the person from whom the apartment had been nationalised in 1949.

Since the mid-1950s the first applicant's mother as well as other members of the family, including the first applicant and later her husband, the second applicant, were tenants in a state-owned five-room 197 square metres apartment in Sofia. In 1971 the applicants and the first applicant's mother purchased the apartment and reimbursed the price within several years. Upon the first applicant's mother's death the applicants became the joint owners of the apartment.

In 1992 the pre-nationalisation owner of the apartment brought an action against the applicants under section 7 of the Restitution Law. Upon her death, the proceedings were continued by her heirs.

On 15 September 1994 the District Court dismissed the claim, noting that at the relevant time the applicants' family had consisted of five persons which entitled them to a three-room apartment, that the first applicant, who was a researcher in philosophy, was entitled to an additional room for her study, and that the apartment consisted in fact of four rooms, the fifth room being a connecting hall. The court further noted that the first applicant's mother had been registered as an “anti-fascist and anti-capitalist veteran” - a registration that had carried a number of privileges provided by law - and that this fact had been mentioned in the papers relating to the 1971 purchase. However, at the relevant time the right of a registered veteran to purchase a dwelling with priority was provided for by law. Therefore, it could not be considered that there had been abuse of office or of a position in the communist party within the meaning of section 7 of the Restitution Law.

Following a decision terminating the proceedings and another decision ordering their continuation, the plaintiffs' ensuing appeal was eventually decided by the Sofia City Court by judgment of 6 April 1998 which upheld the District Court's judgment.

Upon the plaintiff's cassation appeal, on 16 June 1999 the Supreme Court of Cassation quashed the lower courts' judgments and granted the claim, declaring the applicants' title null and void.

The Supreme Court of Cassation agreed with the lower courts that there had not been abuse. However, the conclusions as regards the fifth room of the apartment had been wrong. In reality, the apartment had exceeded by one room the family's needs, as determined by the relevant regulations.

On 30 June 1999 the restored owners invited the applicants to vacate the apartment and requested monthly payments of 500 US dollars.

The applicants refused to leave but were eventually evicted in June 2002 pursuant to an eviction court order.

Between 1999 and 2002 the restored owners sued the applicants and obtained judgments ordering them to pay damages for their failure to vacate the property. Thus, as of October 2003 the applicants owed to the restored owners approximately BGN 28,000 (the equivalent of approximately EUR 14,000) which they refused to pay. The applicants also owed at least BGN 3,000 in costs.

The applicants never applied for compensation bonds considering that “useless”.

On 19 October 1999 the applicants requested the mayor to provide them a municipal apartment for rent. They were placed on the waiting list but never received an offer.

On an unspecified date the applicants purchased a small apartment for an unspecified sum of money and moved there. Shortly thereafter, the restored owners applied for and obtained an attachment of the applicants' new apartment to secure the payment of their claims. On 8 April 2005 the enforcement judge undertook steps to put the applicants' new apartment on sale with a view to satisfying the restored owners' claims. In addition, monthly deductions are applied to the applicants' pensions to cover their debt.

B. Background facts and relevant domestic law and practice

These are summarised in application no. 43278/98, Velikov and Others v. Bulgaria.

COMPLAINTS

The applicants complained, relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and on Article 14 that they had been the victims of an unlawful and unjustified interference with their property rights.

THE LAW

The applicants complained, relying on under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and on Article 14, that they had been the victims of an unlawful and unjustified interference with their property rights. The relevant provisions read as follows:

Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.

The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way