Resolution CM/ ResDH (2019)141 Execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights

Five cases against Bulgaria

(Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 6 June 2019 at the 1348 th meeting of the Ministers' Deputies)

Application No.

Case

Judgment of

Final on

12739/05

GORANOVA-KARAENEVA

08/03/2011

08/06/2011

22373/04

HADZHIEV

23/10/2012

18/03/2013

5182/02

KIROV

22/05/2008

22/08/2008

27079/04

NATSEV

16/10/2012

16/01/2013

21480/03

GEORGI YORDANOV

24/09/2009

24/12/2009

The Committee of Ministers, under the terms of Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, which provides that the Committee supervises the execution of final judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (hereinafter “the Convention” and “the Court”,

Having regard to the final judgments transmitted by the Court to the Committee in these cases and to the violations established on account of lack of sufficient safeguards in Bulgarian law against the risk of abuse which is inherent in every secret surveillance system and the lack of an effective remedy to seek redress (violations of Article 8 and 13);

Recalling the respondent State’s obligation, under Article 46, paragraph 1, of the Convention, to abide by all final judgments in cases to which it has been a party and that this obligation entails, over and above the payment of any sums awarded by the Court, the adoption by the authorities of the respondent State, where required:

- of individual measures to put an end to violations established and erase their consequences so as to achieve as far as possible restitutio in integrum ; and

- of general measures preventing similar violations;

Having invited the government of the respondent State to inform the Committee of the measures taken to comply with the above-mentioned obligation;

Having examined the action plan provided by the government indicating the individual measures adopted in order to give effect to the judgments including the information provided regarding the payment of the just satisfaction awarded by the Court (see document DH-DD(2019)401 );

Considering that no further individual measures are needed in these cases, given that in the cases Hadzhiev and Natsev the applicants did not allege that secret surveillance had been used against them, the intelligence gathered in the Kirov case has been destroyed, the secret surveillance in the Goranova-Karaeneva case was considered lawful by the European Court which only found a violation of Article 13 and the unlawfully gathered intelligence in the Georgi Yordanov case is kept in a strictly confidential manner in a case-file concerning the applicant’s life imprisonment;

Recalling that the question of general measures required in response to the shortcomings found by the Court in the present judgments continues to be examined within the framework of the Association for European Integration and Human Rights and Ekimdzhiev group of cases and that the closure of the present cases therefore in no way prejudges the Committee’s evaluation of the general measures required;

DECLARES that it has exercised its functions under Article 46, paragraph 2, of the Convention in these cases as regards the individual measures and

DECIDES to close the examination of these cases.