Communicated on 27 March 2015

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 5372/08 BULAVTOTRANS EOOD against Bulgaria lodged on 5 January 2008

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicant, Bulavtotrans EOOD, is a Bulgarian limited liability company with its seat in Sofia.

The circumstances of the case

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

The applicant company is the successor of a former State-owned enterprise. It was registered as a company in 1990 and in 1999 was privatised. Since its creation it has been holding and using a plot of land of more than 17,000 square metres, used and managed before that by the State ‑ owned enterprise.

On 26 January 1993 the land commission in the Mladost district of Sofia, a body tasked with managing the process of restitution of agricultural land (“the land commission”), ordered the restitution in kind of a plot of land measuring 1,043 square metres to a group of individuals, the heirs of a Mr P. That plot lay entirely within the boundaries of the bigger plot used by the applicant company. As, for that reason, the heirs of Mr P. could not recover possession of their former property, in 1998 they brought against the applicant company a rei vindicatio action.

The action, examined by three levels of jurisdiction, was allowed in a final judgment of the Supreme Court of Cassation of 6 July 2007. The domestic courts ’ reasoning focused on one of the applicant company ’ s arguments against the restitution, namely that the land commission ’ s decision of 26 January 1993 had not been signed by lawfully appointed members of that body. Eventually, the courts concluded that the land commission ’ s members had been validly appointed.

In addition, at all levels the applicant company argued that the preconditions for restitution in kind had not been met, most notably because “a complex of construction works” had been carried out on the disputed plot after the expropriation; according to the applicable law, namely the Agricultural Land Act, in such situations restitution in kind was impossible and the interested parties were to receive compensation instead. The applicant company pointed out that the domestic courts were authorised to exercise the so-called “indirect judicial review” of the decision of 26 January 1993; in that aspect it relied on constant judicial practice. The applicant company argued in addition that the process of restitution had not yet been properly completed, because the heirs of Mr P. had not obtained a plan of the plot required for that purpose. However, these arguments were not examined and responded to on any level. In particular, in its judgment of 6 July 2007 the Supreme Court of Cassation, after finding that the land commission ’ s members had been validly appointed, concluded immediately that the decision at issue rendered the heirs of Mr P. owners of the disputed plot, ordering the applicant company to surrender its possession.

COMPLAINTS

1. The applicant company complains under Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention that the domestic courts failed to respond to its arguments as to the permissibility of the restitution in kind of the plot of land claimed by the heirs of Mr P. and that the restitution procedure had not yet been properly completed. It points out that it raised these matters in a sufficiently clear manner, but could not obtain their examination. It considers that as a result it was deprived of the possibility to use the only means at its disposal to protect its rights, namely the “indirect judicial review” of the land commission ’ s decision of 26 January 1993.

2. The applicant company complains in addition, relying on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 and Article 13 of the Convention, that as a result of the breach of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention it was unlawfully deprived of its property.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicant company have a fair hearing in the determination of its civil rights and obligations, in accordance with Article 6 § 1 of the Convention? In particular, did the domestic courts ’ failure to respond to some of its arguments entail a violation of that provision?

2. Has the applicant company been deprived of its possessions, namely the plot of land claimed by the heirs of Mr P., in accordance with the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1?