Communicated on 23 September 2020 Published on 12 October 2020

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 45046/15 Rozka Georgieva GEORGIEVA and Stefanka Dimitrova TRIFONOVA against Bulgaria lodged on 4 September 2015

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicants, Ms Rozka Georgieva Georgieva (“the first applicant”) and Ms Stefanka Dimitrova Trifonova (“the second applicant”), are Bulgarian nationals who were born in 1948 and 1973 respectively and live in Sofia. They are represented before the Court by Mr D. Ganev , a lawyer practising in Sofia.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

The applicants were among the owners of a plot of land on the outskirts of Sofia, on the strength of a restitution decision dated 14 July 1994. The plot, measuring 2,199 square metres, was described in the decision as a third-category “meadow”. The first applicant owned one-third of it, and the second applicant one-ninth.

In a decision of 21 December 2013 the Council of Ministers expropriated 1,777 square metres of the plot, as well as numerous other plots of land in the area, for the construction of a section of the ring road around Sofia. The decision stated that the applicants and the other owners of the plot would receive monetary compensation in the amount of 1,663 Bulgarian levs (BGN), equivalent to 850 euros (EUR), or BGN 0.93 (EUR 0.48) per square metre. The compensation had been calculated in accordance with the Regulation on the calculation of the value of agricultural land.

The applicants and the remaining owners of the plot applied for a judicial review of the expropriation decision, arguing in particular that the compensation awarded to them was too low.

The Supreme Administrative Court appointed an expert to calculate the land ’ s value. The expert prepared two reports. In the first one he enlisted three transactions with plots in the same zone, included in the urban territory of Sofia, and in his additional report he referred to two other plots in the zone, registered as agricultural land. In the former case the average sale price had been BGN 111 (EUR 57) per square metre, and in the latter one BGN 0.88 (EUR 0.45) per square metre.

In a judgment of 29 April 2015 the Supreme Administrative Court dismissed the application for judicial review. It found that, of the three urban plots described by the expert, only one could qualify as comparable as defined in the State Property Act (hereinafter “the 1996 Act) – it had been sold in February 2012 for about BGN 2.88 (EUR 1.47) per square metre. One transaction was however insufficient to establish a market value. On the other hand, in his additional report the expert had presented two transactions with agricultural land, otherwise also meeting the relevant requirements. The applicants ’ land had also been used as agricultural (despite making this latter finding, the Supreme Administrative Court enlisted evidence presented by the plaintiffs aiming to prove that the land had been included in the urban territory, failing to comment on it).

The Supreme Administrative Court concluded thus that BGN 0.88 (EUR 0.45) per square metre – the value under the additional expert report taking into account transactions with agricultural land – was the value of the applicants ’ land established in accordance with section 32(2) of the 1996 Act. Since this was less than the amount of compensation awarded in the expropriation decision of 21 December 2013 (namely BGN 0.93 (EUR 0.48) per square metre), the application for judicial review had no merit.

In the meantime, in December 2014 the Council of Ministers took a decision to seek settlement in the cases pending before the Supreme Administrative Court, concerning what was labelled agricultural land expropriated for the construction of the ring road on the strength of the decision of 21 December 2013. It was decided that the maximum compensation to be proposed to the expropriated owners would be BGN 20.05 (EUR 10) per square metre.

The applicants, while submitting the above decision of the Council of Ministers, did not specify whether any settlement such as described in it has been sought by the State in their case.

The relevant domestic law and practice have been described in Kostov and Others v. Bulgaria (nos. 66581/12 and 25054/15, § 23-38, 14 May 2020).

COMPLAINT

The applicants complain, relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and Article 6 § 1 of the Convention, that the compensation awarded to them when their land was expropriated was too low.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Did the deprivation of the applicants ’ of their property comply with the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular, was the compensation awarded to them reasonably related to their expropriated land ’ s value (see Kostov and Others v. Bulgaria , nos. 66581/12 and 25054/15, 14 May 2020)?