Communicated on 22 October 2019
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 54909/14
Vladimir Atanasov GECHEV and Others
against Bulgaria
lodged on 22 July 2014
STATEMENT OF FACTS
A list of the applicants is set out in the appendix.
The applicants are represented before the Court by Mr M. Ekimdzhiev and Ms G. Chernicherska, lawyers practising in Plovdiv.The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
In 1992 the applicants applied for the restitution of agricultural land in the outskirts of Plovdiv, which had previously been owned by a predecessor of theirs. In a decision of 17 February 2000 the competent body, the Plovdiv land commission, ordered the restitution of the land, in particular of a plot of 7,600 square metres which is the subject of the applicants’ complaints.
In fact, after the collectivisation parts of that plot had been given for use to third persons, and in the beginning of the 1990s some of these persons had been entitled to buy up their respective parts. Other parts of the land had been taken by roads. That is why the applicants could not obtain the restitution of the entire plot of 7,600 square metres, but only of the parts which had remained free. For the remainder they were entitled to receive compensation.
A cadastral part of the area indicating the exact borders of the relevant parts was adopted in 2001. The applicants challenged it, in so far as it concerned the sale of 600 square metres of their plot to a another person, but were unsuccessful, and that part of the plan thus entered into force in 2005.
The parts of the applicants’ plot taken by roads totalled 2,250 square metres, and the parts acquired by third parties – 3,110 square metres.
In February 2010 the applicants sent a letter to the local municipality, insisting on receiving the compensation due to them in lieu of restitution. Since the mayor gave a decision which did not respond to this request but dealt with other matters, the applicants applied for judicial review and the decision was quashed in a final judgment of 23 February 2012. The Supreme Administrative Court pointed out that the mayor had been obliged to take a decision on the compensation due to the applicants and remitted the case to him to decide accordingly.
In November 2018 the applicants informed the Court that no decision on the compensation at issue had been taken and that no further relevant developments had taken place.Relevant domestic law and practice
The relevant domestic provisions concerning the restitution of agricultural land, in kind or through the award of compensation, have been summarised in Naydenov v. Bulgaria (no. 17353/03, §§ 21-42, 26 November 2009) and Sivova and Koleva v. Bulgaria (no. 30383/03, §§ 30-35, 15 November 2011).
The relevant provisions concerning the enforcement of final judgments of the administrative courts have been cited in Stoyanov and Tabakov v. Bulgaria (no. 34130/04, §§ 53-58, 26 November 2013).
COMPLAINTS
The applicants complain under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 about the prolonged failure of the mayor to award them compensation for the parts of their land which were not subject to restitution, despite the Supreme Administrative Court’s judgment of 23 February 2012 instructing him to take a decision on the matter.
The applicants complain in addition under Article 13 of the Convention of the lack of domestic remedies for their complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has the restitution procedure initiated by the applicants lasted too long, and is this in breach of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see, for example, Lyubomir Popov v. Bulgaria, no. 69855/01, 7 January 2010 and Popov and Chonin v. Bulgaria, no. 36094/08, 17 February 2015)? Why has the compensation due to the applicants not been provided to them?
Could the applicants have sped up the procedure, in particular by resorting to the remedies provided under Articles 294 and 304 of the Code of Administrative Procedure in order to obtain the enforcement of the 2012 judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court?
2. Did the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?
APPENDIX
No.
Applicant’s Name
Birth date
Nationality
Place of residence
1
Vladimir Atanasov GECHEV
10/04/1977
Bulgarian
Plovdiv
2
Vladimir Krastanov GECHEV
25/07/1960
Bulgarian
Plovdiv
3
Rumyana Borisova GECHEVA
24/09/1953
Bulgarian
Plovdiv
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