Published on 25 March 2024
THIRD SECTION
Application no. 33718/21
Sunay Fahri YAKUB
against Bulgaria
lodged on 24 June 2021
communicated on 7 March 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. In connection with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, in March 2020 Bulgaria’s Parliament enacted the Act “on the Measures and Steps During the State of Emergency Declared by the National Assembly on 13 March 2020, and for Overcoming of its Consequences” (Закон за мерките и действията по време на извънредното положение, обявено с решение на Народното събрание от 13 март 2020 г., и за преодоляване на последиците).[1]
2. Section 28(3) of the Act, added in February 2021 (in connection with the upcoming parliamentary elections on 4 April 2021), provided that voters placed in mandatory isolation under the Health Act 2004 were to vote in the place where they had been isolated by way of a mobile ballot box, in a manner to be determined by the Central Electoral Commission, and that such voters were to be included in a special list for voting by way of a mobile ballot box.
3. In March 2021 the Central Electoral Commission decided, inter alia, that voters could not be included in those special lists after 1 April 2021.
4. On 2 April 2021 the applicant, a Bulgarian national, tested positive for SARS-CoV-2, and the local health inspectorate placed him in mandatory isolation in his home from 2 until 15 April 2021. The inspectorate’s decision was based on section 61 of the Health Act 2004 (which had also been amended in 2020 in connection with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic) and an October 2020 order of the Minister of Health (Заповед № РД-01-610 от 22.10.2020 г. за определяне на кръга от лица – потвърдени случаи на COVID-19, които подлежат на домашна изолация и лечение, както и на подлежащите на задължителна изолация и хоспитализация в лечебните заведения за болнична помощ) according to which all people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 but did not require hospital treatment were to be placed in home isolation for a period of ten days running from the date of the positive test result. The inspectorate’s decision was formally served on the applicant on 16 April 2021, but he was apparently already aware of it on 3 April 2021.
5. On 3 April 2021, the day after he had been placed in isolation, the applicant submitted, by email, a request to the regional electoral commission to vote in the parliamentary elections (due to be held the following day, 4 April 2021) by way of a mobile ballot box. He pointed out that he had been placed in mandatory isolation from 2 until 15 April 2021. On 4 April 2021 that commission, citing the decision of the Central Electoral Commission mentioned in paragraph 3 above, informed the applicant by email that it could not include him in the list of people voting by way of a mobile ballot box, as the time-limit for that had already expired.
6. Relying on Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, and in the alternative on Article 8 of the Convention, the applicant complains that he was deprived of the possibility to vote in the parliamentary elections on 4 April 2021 owing to the inadequate organisation of those elections during the Covid-19 pandemic.
QUESTION TO THE PARTIES
Has there been a breach of the applicant’s rights under Article 3 of Protocol No. 1, alternatively his rights under Article 8 of the Convention, in relation to the alleged impossibility of his voting in the parliamentary elections in Bulgaria on 4 April 2021 (see, mutatis mutandis, Toplak and Mrak v. Slovenia, nos. 34591/19 and 42545/19, §§ 117 and 122-32, 26 October 2021, and, as regards the complaint under Article 8 of the Convention, Mółka v. Poland (dec.), no. 56550/00, ECHR 2006-IV)?
[1] The original title of the Act did not include the words “and for Overcoming of its Consequences”; those were added in May 2020.