Published on 10 June 2024
THIRD SECTION
Applications nos. 25039/21 and 25071/21
Asiya Hasanova CHAPADZHIEVA against Bulgaria
and Ahmed Hasanov CHAPADZHIEV against Bulgaria
lodged on 7 May 2021
communicated on 21 May 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The two applications concerns the right to impartial tribunal.
The applicants, who are spouses, brought two sets of identical tort proceedings against relatives of theirs with whom they had a property dispute, and who had allegedly beaten them up during a heated exchange. The cases were to be examined by the Madan District Court, where, due to shortage of staff, judges seconded from the Smolyan Regional Court worked for different periods of time. In two preparatory decisions dated 24 January 2020 one of these judges, Judge S., decided on the following matters: she accepted evidence submitted by the applicants; allowed one witness for each of the parties and dismissed their requests to have additional witnesses heard; commissioned an expert report and requested documents from other State bodies; summarised the parties’ factual statements, indicating the uncontested facts; instructed each party on their respective burden of proof; and finally invited the parties to attempt a settlement. Later on the cases were decided on by a different judge from the Madan District Court, who dismissed the applicants’ claims, finding their allegations of a beating up unproven.
After lodging appeals, the applicants sought the recusal of Judge S. and other judges from the Smolyan Regional Court who had been implicated in the examination of their cases at first instance, or the transfer of the cases to another regional court. The bench of the Smolyan Regional Court, including Judge S., dismissed the request, noting only that there were no grounds for recusal. After that, in two judgments of 9 November 2020, which were not subject to cassation review, the same bench upheld the lower court’s findings.
The applicants complain under Article 6 of the Convention that their right to an impartial tribunal was breached, in particular because of the participation of Judge S. in the examination of their cases by the courts of first and second instance.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Was the Smolyan Regional Court, examining the applicants’ claims as a second-instance court, impartial, as required by Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, seeing the participation of Judge S. also at the examination of the cases at the court of first instance?