Communicated on 7 December 2016
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 15074/08
Tsanko Todorov DOKTOROV
against Bulgaria
lodged on 18 February 2008
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicant, Mr Tsanko Todorov Doktorov, is a Bulgarian national who was born in 1973 and lives in Varna. He is represented before the Court by Mr T. Valchev, a lawyer practising in Varna.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant, may be summarised as follows.
The applicant and his wife divorced on 21 August 2006 pursuant to a court-approved agreement between the two of them. Under the terms of this agreement, the applicant undertook to pay child support to the two children born during the marriage and agreed to his wife’s keeping his family name after the divorce.
Subsequently, the applicant learned that his former wife had conceived their second child as a result of a relationship with another man during her marriage to the applicant. The applicant underwent a DNA test to determine whether he was the father of the younger child. The DNA test ‒ the result of which the applicant received on 15 January 2007 ‒ established that he was not the biological father of the second child, who had been born in 2003.
Shortly thereafter, on an unspecified date, the applicant brought a civil claim in court, seeking to contest his paternity of the child in question. On 1 March 2007 the Varna Regional Court dismissed his request, finding that it was time-barred due to the expiry of the year-long limitation period counting from the child’s birth. This finding was confirmed by two higher judicial instances, the final decision being pronounced by the Supreme Court of Cassation on 19 September 2007.
B. Relevant domestic law
The applicable law at the time was the 1985 Family Code (“the 1985 Code”). According to Article 32 (1) of the 1985 Code, the husband of a child’s mother was considered to be the father of any child born during the marriage or before the expiry of three hundred days from its dissolution.
According to Article 33 (1) of the 1985 Code, the husband of a child’s mother could contest his paternity of the child by proving that the child could not have been fathered by him. Such a claim could be brought within a year of the date on which the father learned of the child’s birth.
COMPLAINTS
The applicant complains in particular under Article 8 and Article 13 of the Convention that it has been impossible for him to contest the legal presumption that he was the father of a child born during his marriage to the mother and that he had no domestic remedy in connection with it.
QUESTIONs TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a violation of the applicant’s right to respect for his private life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention?
2. Did the applicant have an effective domestic remedy, as required by Article 13 of the Convention, in connection with his complaint under Article 8?
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