FIFTH SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 9590/07
Stoyan Dimitrov STEFANOV
against Bulgaria
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 29 March 2016 as a Chamber composed of:
Angelika Nußberger, President,
Ganna Yudkivska,
Khanlar Hajiyev,
Erik Møse,
Faris Vehabović,
Yonko Grozev,
Mārtiņš Mits, judges,
and Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar,
Having regard to the above application lodged on 19 December 2006,
Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
THE FACTS
1. The applicant, Mr Stoyan Dimitrov Stefanov, is a Bulgarian national who was born in 1950 and lives in Sofia. He was represented before the Court by Ms I. Ivanova, a lawyer practising in Sofia.
2. The Bulgarian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms R. Nikolova, of the Ministry of Justice.
The circumstances of the case
3. An ancestor of the applicant, of whom the applicant is the only heir, owned land in the city of Kyustendil that was expropriated after 1944. Following the adoption of denationalisation legislation in Bulgaria, in 1997 the applicant initiated restitution proceedings.
4. In a decision of 5 August 1998 the governor of the Sofia region (“the Sofia governor”) held that the land could not be restituted in kind, and awarded the applicant compensation in lieu of restitution. The Sofia governor found that the land had been taken for the construction of buildings and streets, that the construction works had been completed, and that the land which remained unoccupied was insufficient to be registered as separate plot. These findings were reached on the basis of documents submitted by the Kyustendil municipality, including a letter dated 30 June 1998 stating expressly that the unoccupied land was insufficient for a separate plot.
5. According to the applicant, since he had no ground to question the veracity of the documents submitted by the municipality, he did not seek a judicial review of the Sofia governor’s decision, which thus became final. In June 1999 the applicant received the compensation awarded to him, which took the form of compensation bonds.
6. Subsequently the applicant became aware that at about the time when he had sought restitution the municipality had initiated a procedure aimed at separating that part of the land claimed by him which had been unoccupied by buildings or other construction and creating from it an independent plot. The creation of a new plot with a surface of 2,600 square metres was approved by the mayor of Kyustendil in a decision of 5 February 1999. After that the plot was sold to a third party and construction works were commenced.
7. In 2002 the applicant brought a tort action against the Kyustendil municipality, arguing that it had failed to submit to the Sofia governor correct information regarding the status of the land claimed by him. He considered that this had caused him damage, in that had he been awarded partial restitution in kind on the basis of the correct information, he would have received more than what he had actually received after the sale of his compensation bonds. The applicant assessed the losses he had incurred at 30,329 Bulgarian levs (BGN).
8. The Sofia City Court commissioned an expert report, which confirmed that the documents submitted by the Kyustendil municipality in the restitution proceedings had not accurately reflected the land’s true status. In point of fact, the land unoccupied by construction at the time had been sufficient to form a separate plot under the statutory requirements. The Sofia City Court accepted the report’s findings.
9. In a judgment of 30 March 2005 it dismissed the applicant’s action. It noted that a number of circumstances should have been established in order to substantiate the tort claim; however, it had not been shown that the land claimed by the applicant had been expropriated on any of the grounds giving rise to an entitlement to restitution, that the applicant had in fact sought restitution in kind, and that, lastly, the Sofia governor had refused such restitution in kind (and if he had, on what legal ground). Thus, it had not been shown that a causal link existed between the alleged damage and the defendant’s actions.
10. On appeal, on 5 April 2006 the above judgment was upheld by the Sofia Court of Appeal. It also pointed out that in order to prove his claim the applicant had had to establish a causal link between the alleged damage and the actions of the defendant, consisting of a number of elements, and that the failure to establish just one of them would lead to the rejection of the claim. Like the first-instance court, the Court of Appeal pointed out that a number of elements in the causal link were missing. It held that it was not clear on what evidence the Sofia governor had relied in granting compensation in the restitution proceedings. It further held that the applicant had not requested restitution in kind and that it was not proven that he had been entitled to restitution in kind, as it was not established that the documents submitted by the Kyustendil municipality had been the only basis for holding that such restitution was impossible.
11. Upon a further appeal by the applicant, the Court of Appeal’s judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court of Cassation in a final judgment of 29 June 2007. The Supreme Court’s main argument was that the applicant had failed to apply for a judicial review of the Sofia governor’s decision of 5 August 1998 and seek to establish that a partial restitution in kind had been possible. Thus, any damage incurred by the applicant had not been due to actions on the part of the Kyustendil municipality but rather to his own failure to act.
12. In separate proceedings, in 2001 the applicant brought an action against the governors of the Sofia and Kyustendil regions. That action was dismissed in a final judgment by the Supreme Court of Cassation of 4 February 2005. On 20 June 2006 the Supreme Court also dismissed an application by the applicant for the re-opening of the proceedings.
COMPLAINTS
13. In relation to the facts described in paragraphs 3-12 above, the applicant complained under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention that he had not received a fair trial. He argued that the domestic courts had failed to adequately respond to his argument that the Kyustendil municipality had provided to the regional governor inaccurate information, and contested more generally the outcome of the proceedings and the conclusions reached by the courts. He also complained of the fact that at three levels of jurisdiction his action had been dismissed on allegedly different grounds.
14. The applicant also complained of (i) the unfairness of the proceedings described in paragraph 12 above and (ii) the Supreme Court of Cassation’s refusal to order their re-opening.
THE LAW
15. The applicant complained, first, under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, of the unfairness of the proceedings whereby he sought damages from the Kyustendil municipality in relation to the restitution procedure.
16. Article 6 § 1, in so far as relevant, reads:
“In the determination of his civil rights and obligations ... everyone is entitled to a fair ... hearing ... by [a] ... tribunal ...”
17. The Government argued that the applicant had failed to exhaust the available domestic remedies, given that he had not applied for a judicial review of the regional governor’s decision of 5 August 1998 and, in addition, had not sought the re-opening of the administrative proceedings once he had become aware that the documents presented by the municipality contained incorrect information. The Government argued further that the national courts had been right in dismissing the applicant’s claim for damages against the municipality, since he had indeed not proven the causal link between its actions and the damage he had allegedly sustained.
18. The applicant disagreed and reiterated his complaints.
19. The Court observes that the applicant did not directly complain to it of the outcome of the restitution procedure and the regional governor’s refusal to order partial restitution in kind on the basis of the municipality’s statements, possibly under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, but only under Article 6 § 1 of the Convention in relation to the fairness and the outcome of the tort proceedings (see paragraph 13 above). The Court considers that the Government’s argument that the applicant had failed to exhaust the available domestic remedies (see paragraph 17 above) would have been pertinent solely to a complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1. That argument is irrelevant to the complaint under Article 6 § 1, and the Court will therefore not examine it. In any event, for the reasons stated below it considers that the complaint is inadmissible on different grounds.
20. The applicant complained, in the first place, of the national courts’ alleged failure to examine his claim that the Kyustendil municipality had provided erroneous information to the regional governor (see paragraph 13 above). The Court observes that that information indeed appears to have been inaccurate, and this was also the conclusion of the experts appointed by the Sofia City Court (see paragraph 8 above). Furthermore, the argument at issue could have been relevant in respect of the examination of the applicant’s assertion that the municipality had misled the regional governor by providing erroneous information, thus ultimately causing damage to the applicant (see paragraph 7 above).
21. The Court has held on numerous occasions that Article 6 of the Convention obliges the national courts to give reasons for their decisions (see, for example, Hiro Balani v. Spain, 9 December 1994, § 27, Series A no. 303‑B; García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999‑I; and Idakiev v. Bulgaria, no. 33681/05, § 48, 21 June 2011). However, the Court does not consider that the national courts’ failure to comment expressly on the applicant’s argument in the case at hand, regarding the inaccurate documents submitted by the municipality, violated that principle. In fact, the domestic courts agreed with the expert findings that those documents did not correctly reflect the status of the land. However, this fact alone was not sufficient for allowing the applicant’s claim as a number of other factors were relevant in order to prove that the actions of the defendant had caused him damage (see paragraphs 9 and 10 above), including the applicant’s failure to apply for a judicial review of the regional governor’s decision of 5 August 1998, noted by the Supreme Court of Cassation (see paragraph 11 above).
22. As to the other arguments relied on by the national courts, which were also contested by the applicant (see paragraph 13 above), the Court observes that it is not called upon to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by the national courts, as it is not a court of fourth instance (see, for example, García Ruiz, cited above, § 28, and Khodorkovskiy and Lebedev v. Russia, nos. 11082/06 and 13772/05, §§ 803-4, 25 July 2013). The Court’s task is limited to ensuring that the decisions of those courts are not flawed by arbitrariness or otherwise manifestly unreasonable (see, for example, Patsuria v. Georgia, no. 30779/04, § 86, 6 November 2007). In the instant case, even though some of the arguments relied on by the national courts, such as the Sofia City Court’s statement that it had not been established that the regional governor had refused restitution in kind (see paragraph 9 above), may appear questionable, the fact remains that the reasons given, taken in their entirety, were not arbitrary or unreasonable to such an extent as to render the proceedings as a whole unfair for the purposes of Article 6.
23. Lastly, regarding the same proceedings, the applicant also complained that at different levels of jurisdiction his action had been dismissed on allegedly different grounds. However, given that the case concerns one set of proceedings in the course of which the courts merely drew different conclusions on the basis of the established facts, this raises no question for the Court in respect of legal certainty or any other aspect of the right to a fair trial guaranteed under Article 6 of the Convention.
24. It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected, in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
25. As concerns the remaining complaints, described in paragraph 14 above, in the light of all the material in its possession, and in so far as the matters complained of are within its competence, the Court finds that they do not disclose any appearance of a violation of the rights and freedoms set out in the Convention or its Protocols. It follows that this part of the application is manifestly ill-founded as well.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 28 April 2016.
Claudia WesterdiekAngelika Nußberger
RegistrarPresident
Full & Egal Universal Law Academy