Information Note on the Court’s case-law 198
July 2016
Bulgarian Helsinki Committee v. Bulgaria (dec.) - 35653/12 and 66172/12
Decision 28.6.2016 [Section V]
Article 34
Locus standi
Victim
Standing of non-governmental organisation to lodge application on behalf of deceased children: absence of victim status
Facts – In December 2007, following a television broadcast of a documentary highlighting the situation of disabled children in a home in Bulgaria, the applicant association wrote to the State Prosecutor requesting a criminal investigation into the conditions in which these children were accommodated in the home and into the deaths that had occurred. Between January and October 2008 the prosecution carried out preliminary investigations before concluding that there was no need to institute criminal proceedings and dismissing the cases.
In August 2009 the applicant association brought a civil action against the State Prosecutor’s Office under the Protection against Discrimination Act, seeking to establish that the prosecution’s refusal to launch an investigation amounted to discrimination on grounds of the disability and state of health of the children concerned. In September 2010 the applicant association withdrew its action.
The applicant association monitored the progress of the criminal investigations and lodged appeals against a number of decisions of the prosecution not to prosecute or discontinuing proceedings.
Law – Article 34: The applicant association could not claim to be either a direct victim of the alleged violations – the direct victims being the adolescent children who had died – or an indirect victim, having regard to the lack of a “sufficiently close link” with the direct victim or “personal interest” in maintaining the complaints. The Court was thus required to analyse the standing of the applicant association to act on the deceased children’s behalf. Having regard to the exceptional nature of that application of the concept of locus standi, the criteria set forth in Câmpeanu* were decisive for the examination of the present applications.
The direct victims, on account of their mental disability, their status as abandoned children and their extreme vulnerability, had not been in a position to complain, while alive, of the conditions in the home where they had been placed.
As the young girls had been abandoned at birth and had not had any contact with their biological parents while alive, and one of the mothers had explicitly waived parental rights, the children had de facto led an orphan’s life in the institutions in which they had been placed. Accordingly, even if the mothers remained the children’s legal representatives under domestic law, there had been no real link in the present case between the parents and children, with the result that no one had been responsible for protecting the children’s best interests. Accordingly, the parents in question could not be regarded as persons “capable of lodging an application with the Court”.
The applicant association had not had any contact with the adolescent children and had not taken an interest in their case prior to their deaths, which had occurred in October 2006 and October 2007 respectively. Long periods had elapsed not only between the girls’ deaths and the first steps taken by the applicant association in the respective investigations, but also between the decisions discontinuing the proceedings, of which the applicant association had already learnt, and their applications to the prosecution to have the investigations reopened. The Court could not consider that the applicant association could rely indefinitely on a right to contest the allegedly flawed criminal proceedings in the present case, even supposing that it could be deemed to have had that right from the time it had learnt of the girls’ death. A contrary finding would mean, irrespective of the examination of the issue of locus standi, that the applicant association would be exempted from the duty to comply with another condition of admissibility of applications brought before the Court, namely, introduction of the application within six months.
Whilst the applicant association had intervened at domestic level it had not had formal standing in the domestic proceedings under Bulgarian law. It had not been party to the proceedings and had not enjoyed the procedural rights granted to the parties. It had only been able to challenge the prosecutor’s discontinuance orders and had not subsequently had the right to appeal against them before the courts.
In conclusion, in view of the fact that the applicant association had not been in contact with the girls before they died and had not had a procedural status encompassing all the rights enjoyed by parties to criminal proceedings and the fact that its intervention in the criminal proceedings following the discontinuance orders had been delayed, the criteria established in Câmpeanu had not been satisfied. Accordingly, the Court was unable to find that the applicant association had legal standing in the present case.
However, the Court’s decision was limited to the circumstances of the present case and the above conclusion should not be interpreted as disregard for civil society’s work to protect the rights of extremely vulnerable people. The applicant association had played an active and vigilant role in alerting the competent institutions and had cooperated with them during the investigations and inspections that had been carried out. In that context the Bulgarian authorities had taken the reports made by the applicant association seriously despite the fact that the latter had no formal status in the domestic proceedings.
Accordingly, the Court accepted the Government’s objection regarding the applicant association’s lack of locus standi and considered that the applications were incompatible ratione personae within the meaning of Article 34 of the Convention.
Conclusion: inadmissible (incompatible ratione personae).
(See also Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania – Helsinki Committee on behalf of Ionel Garcea v. Romania, 2959/11, 24 March 2015, Information Note 183)
* Centre for Legal Resources on behalf of Valentin Câmpeanu v. Romania [GC], 47848/08, 17 July 2014, Information Note 176.
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This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.
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