Published on 21 July 2025
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 316/22
Irina Tomova SHUMAROVA
against Bulgaria
lodged on 20 December 2021
communicated on 2 July 2025
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. In mid-2017, the applicant was appointed to the position of executive director of a company, fully owned by the Ministry of Health, operating a spa hotel in Velingrad. Earlier, in 2015, she had been elected municipal councillor in Velingrad, on the ticket of the political party GERB. In October 2018, the Minister of Health dismissed her from the position of executive director.
2. On 12 October 2018 a member of Parliament for the Bulgarian Socialist Party, Mr S.V., speaking in Parliament in the form of questions to the Minister of Health and of a rejoinder following the Minister’s answer, made a series of statements about the applicant, essentially accusing her of mismanaging the company and abusing her position there.
3. In December 2018 the applicant brought a defamation claim against Mr S.V. She took issue with fourteen allegations that he had made in relation to her, all of which had in her view been false and defamatory, and sought 28,000 Bulgarian levs (BGN) (14,316.17 euros (EUR)) in non-pecuniary damages.
4. In December 2019 the Sofia City Court dismissed the claim (реш. № 8588 от 16.12.2019 г. по гр. д. № 16536/2018 г., СГС). It held, in particular, that Mr S.V. had not been under a duty to verify the veracity of the allegations about the applicant which had been brought to his attention as a member of Parliament and used by him to pose questions to the Minister.
5. The applicant appealed. In January 2021 the Sofia Court of Appeal partly quashed and partly upheld the lower court’s judgment, and awarded the applicant BGN 2,000 (EUR 1,022.58) in non-pecuniary damages (реш. № 10098 от 26.01.2021 г. по в. гр. д. № 584/2020 г., САС). It held that under the principles elaborated in the courts’ case-law in such cases, Mr S.V. could only bear liability in respect of untrue factual allegations about the applicant or false accusations that she had committed a criminal offence. However, most of his statements in relation to her had been critical value judgments not relating to specific facts whose truthfulness could be checked. The applicant, as a public figure – executive director of a locally important company and municipal councillor – had to tolerate higher levels of criticism. The only statements of Mr S.V. which had constituted allegations of fact had been that the applicant had committed fraud and that there was an ongoing criminal investigation against her; those had been untrue and had damaged her reputation and caused her anxiety.
6. The applicant appealed on points of law. On 22 June 2021 the Supreme Court of Cassation refused to admit the appeal for examination, chiefly on the basis that the lower court had applied the relevant case-law correctly (опр. № 60529 от 22.06.2021 г. по гр. д. № 1424/2021 г., ВКС).
7. The applicant complains under Article 8 of the Convention that the Bulgarian courts did not examine her claim against Mr S.V. properly and in line with the standards flowing from the Court’s case-law. She further complains that this deprived her of an effective remedy, in breach of Article 13 of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Were the Bulgarian authorities under an obligation to protect the applicant’s right to respect for her private life, enshrined in Article 8 of the Convention, from the statements that Mr S.V. made in relation to her in Parliament (compare, mutatis mutandis, McCann and Healy v. Portugal, no. 57195/17, §§ 68-70, 20 September 2022, and Oleg Balan v. the Republic of Moldova, no. 25259/20, §§ 19-20, 14 May 2024)?
2. If so, did they comply with that obligation? In particular, was the way in which the Bulgarian courts examined the applicant’s defamation claim against Mr S.V. in line with the requirements of Article 8 of the Convention, as construed in the Court’s case-law (compare, mutatis mutandis, Jishkariani v. Georgia, no. 18925/09, §§ 41-63, 20 September 2018; McCann and Healy, cited above, §§ 78-102; and Oleg Balan, cited above, §§ 26-44)? Did it deprive the applicant of an effective remedy, in breach of Article 13 of the Convention?