Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 73
March 2005
Bulgakov v. Ukraine (dec.) - 59894/00
Decision 22.3.2005 [Section II]
Article 8
Article 8-1
Respect for private life
Transcription of first name and patronymic of a Russian origin citizen in his Ukrainian passports: admissible
Article 14
Discrimination
Transcription of first name and Russian origin foreign names in Ukrainian passports: admissible
The applicant is a Ukrainian citizen of Russian origin. His original first name is Dmitriy, his surname is Bulgakov and Vladimirovich is his “patronymic”, a kind of second forename formed from the father’s first name together with the appropriate suffix. Ukrainian citizens normally have two passports. The internal passport is the basic identity document and provides proof of the holder’s identity in all administrative and socio-economic dealings within the country. The external passport is a travel document used abroad. On page 2 of the applicant’s internal passport (written in Ukrainian), his first name and patronymic were given in the form of their Ukrainian equivalents, i.e. Dmytro Volodymyrovych. On page 3 (written in Russian), all the components of his name appeared in their original form. In the applicant’s external passport his first name was also given in its Ukrainian form on the first page, written in Ukrainian and English (there was no mention of his patronymic). The applicant contested the use of the Ukrainian forms of his first name and patronymic, contending that only their original forms should be given. His applications were dismissed. The courts held that, in accordance with Ukrainian law, the applicant’s personal details also had to appear in Ukrainian, which meant that the first name and patronymic had to “conform to the requirements of the Ukrainian language, in accordance with the rules of literary translation”. The applicant argued that the requirement to “write his name in Ukrainian” as laid down in domestic regulations merely implied that it could be transliterated into the Ukrainian alphabet, rather than allowing a Russian first name or patronymic to be replaced by their Ukrainian equivalents. He also complained of discrimination on the ground of his association with the Russian minority. He contended that in the transcription of foreign forenames and surnames in Ukrainian documents, persons of Russian origin were treated differently from those of different foreign origins, whose names were transliterated into the Ukrainian alphabet, whereas the names of persons of Russian origin were replaced by their Ukrainian etymological equivalents.
Admissible under Articles 8 and 14. The Government objected that domestic remedies had not been exhausted. They submitted, among other things, that by signing the two passports the applicant had given his consent to everything contained in them. The Court pointed out that passports were basic identity documents required in order to exercise numerous fundamental political and socioeconomic rights. Seeing that the applicant had submitted his complaints to the Ukrainian courts, which had examined them on the merits, the Court accepted that, as the applicant maintained, signing the passports could not deemed equivalent to his consenting to the practice in question.
Inadmissible under Articles 3 and 6 § 1.
© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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