Communicated on 14 December 2015
FIFTH SECTION
Application no. 45158/09
Dmitri Gavrilovich KURILOVICH and others
against Bulgaria
lodged on 2 July 2009
STATEMENT OF FACTS
The applicants, Dmitri Gavrilovich Kurilovich, Maria Atanasova Kurilovich and Alexandar Dmitriev Kurilovich, were born in 1978, 1980 and 2007 respectively. The first applicant is a national of Belarus and the second and third applicants are Bulgarian nationals. At the time of submission of the application the second and third applicants were living in Sofia. The applicants were represented before the Court by Ms Galya Galabova, lawyer practicing in Sofia.
A. The circumstances of the case
The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.
The first applicant came to Bulgaria in 1997. In 2001 he was granted long-term resident status, and in 2003 – permanent resident status. In 2005 he married the second applicant, and in 2007 was born their son, the third applicant.
On 29 May 2008 the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ National Security Service issued an order withdrawing the first applicant’s residence permit, ordering his expulsion and imposing a ten-year ban on his re‑entering Bulgaria on the ground that his presence in the country represented a “serious threat to national security”. Factual grounds were not indicated; it was merely noted that the order was based on “proposal no. B848”.
Although that internal document has not been submitted by the applicants, the claims made in it were subsequently summarized by the Supreme Administrative Court in the proceedings described below. Apparently, it stated that the first applicant was a member of a “Russian criminal group” and had been implicated in money laundering.
On 12 June 2008 the first applicant applied for the expulsion order’s judicial review. He pointed out, in particular, that he had his family in Bulgaria, and that the measures against him were in breach of his Convention rights. In addition, he presented a certificate that he had no criminal convictions in Bulgaria.
In a final judgment of 8 January 2009 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the application for judicial review and held that the 29 May 2009 order was lawful. After summarizing the claims made in proposal no. B848, it found that they were sufficient to justify a conclusion that the first applicant represented a threat to national security. Next, it dismissed his arguments relating to his family life, considering that
“any restriction of the rights under the Convention is justified [when based] on national security considerations, in cases where foreign citizens’ behaviour threatens the national security and the public order of the State where they reside.”
On an unspecified date following the above judgment the first applicant was expelled.
B. Relevant domestic law and practice
The relevant domestic law and practice have been summarised in the Court’s judgment in the case of Raza v. Bulgaria (no. 31465/08, §§ 30-36, 11 February 2010).
COMPLAINTS
1. The applicants complain under Article 8 of the Convention that the first applicant’s expulsion from Bulgaria, which they consider arbitrary, disrupted their settled family life there.
2. The applicants also complain, relying on Articles 6 and 13 of the Convention, that they had at their disposal no effective remedy to protect their right to family life. They point out that the Supreme Administrative Court failed to carry out any meaningful review of the executive’s claims that the first applicant was involved in unlawful activities and represented a threat to national security, and that it failed to take into account the expulsion’s consequences for his family.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Has there been a violation of the applicants’ right to respect for their family life, contrary to Article 8 of the Convention, on account of the first applicant’s expulsion and the other measures against him (see, for example, Raza v. Bulgaria, no. 31465/08, § 43-56, 11 February 2010, and Amie and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 58149/08, §§ 89-102, 12 February 2013)?
2. Did the applicants have at their disposal an effective domestic remedy for their complaint under Article 8, as required by Article 13 of the Convention (see, for example, Kaushal and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 1537/08, §§ 35-43, 2 September 2010)?
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