Published on 7 April 2026
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 21353/22
Andriyan Tsvetkov KRUMOV
against Bulgaria
lodged on 21 April 2022
communicated on 17 March 2026
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. At about 10.30 a.m. on 27 January 2021, the applicant’s car, which he had stopped close to a school in the town of Berkovitsa, in the Montana region, was searched by the police. The police also carried out a body search of the applicant. No items of interest were found or seized. The applicant was then taken to a police station, where records of the two searches were drawn up.
2. In the course of the ensuing proceedings for damages that the applicant brought against the police, the two officers who had carried out the searches testified that the concrete reasons for them had been (a) that the applicant had stopped his car close to a school, at a spot suspected by the police to be a drug-dealing and drug-use area, and (b) information that two people who had been with the applicant at the time had been involved in drug dealing. The police were, more generally, acting on instructions from the Chief Prosecutor, given in March 2020, to prioritise the investigation of drug offences, in particular around schools.
3. In February 2021, the applicant brought a claim for damages against the Montana police under section 1(1) of the State and Municipalities Liability for Damage Act 1988 in relation to the car search and the body search. He relied on Article 8 of the Convention, and argued, in particular, that the grounds for the searches had remained unclear and that the police had not had a reason to suspect that he might be involved in drug offences.
4. In May 2021, the Montana Administrative Court dismissed the claim on the basis that the two searches had been carried out consistently with the procedural and formal requirements of sections 80 and 81 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Act 2014 (“the 2014 Act”), which govern vehicle and body searches, and that the police officers who had carried out the searches had not therefore committed an unlawful act (see реш. № 206 от 05.05.2021 г. по адм. д. № 103/2021 г., АдмС-Монтана).
5. The applicant appealed on points of law. He argued, in particular, that the court had failed to analyse the presence, at the time of the searches, of a specific suspicion that he might be involved in drug offences.
6. On 25 January 2022 the Supreme Administrative Court upheld the lower court’s judgment. It noted, in particular, that the police had complied with the requirements of sections 80 and 81 of the 2014 Act, and of a related instruction issued by the Minister of Internal Affairs, as to the manner in which the searches were to be carried out (see реш. № 612 от 25.01.2022 г. по адм. д. № 6664/2021 г., ВАС, III о.).
7. The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that the searches of his car and of him personally were:
(a) not surrounded by sufficient safeguards against arbitrariness because (i) the search powers of the police under sections 80 and 81 of the 2014 Act are too loosely formulated, (ii) there is no requirement for independent witnesses during such searches, and (iii) such searches are not subject to prior or subsequent judicial authorisation (whereas the possibility of seeking damages in respect of them does not in practice operate as a sufficient safeguard); and
(b) unnecessary and disproportionate because they were not based on sufficient information about wrongdoing.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Were the searches of the applicant’s car and of the applicant himself in line with the requirements of Article 8 of the Convention? In particular, did the relevant statutory provisions, as interpreted by the courts, sufficiently circumscribe the exercise of the powers of the police to carry out such searches and lay down adequate legal safeguards against an abusive or a disproportionate exercise of those powers (see, mutatis mutandis, Gillan and Quinton v. the United Kingdom, no. 4158/05, §§ 79-87, ECHR 2010 (extracts), and Vig v. Hungary, no. 59648/13, §§ 54-62, 14 January 2021)?