Published on 12 September 2022

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 31163/18 Aneta Ivanova MARKOVA against Bulgaria lodged on 17 June 2018 communicated on 22 August 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the restitution of a plot of agricultural land in the area of Petrich, former property of the applicant’s father. The applicant’s entitlement to restitution was initially acknowledged in a 1997 judgment of the Blagoevgrad Regional Court and confirmed in another judgment of the same court given on 21 December 1999. However, the competent administrative body – the local agricultural department – only issued a decision finalising the restitution on 2 January 2019.

Throughout the years the national courts, examining different aspects of the case, gave in particular the following judgments: 1) on 21 December 1999 (see above) the Blagoevgrad Regional Court recognised the applicant’s entitlement to the restitution in kind of a part of the plot, which, according to it, had not been constructed upon; 2) on two occasions, on 22 August 2013 and 23 July 2015, the Petrich District Court ordered the local mayor to issue technical documents concerning the plot of land, requisite for the agricultural department’s decision on restitution; the documents were issued in February 2018.

The applicant complains under Article 6 § 1 and Article 13 of the Convention and Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the delayed enforcement of the court judgments of 21 December 1999, 22 August 2013 and 23 July 2015 and the lengthy duration of the restitution proceedings.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Was the enforcement of the court judgments of 21 December 1999, 22 August 2013 and 23 July 2015 unduly delayed, and did any such delay amount to a violation of Article 6 § 1 of the Convention (see Bratanova v. Bulgaria , no. 44497/06, 9 June 2015, and Velcheva v. Bulgaria , no. 35355/08, 9 June 2015)?

2. Was the duration of the restitution proceedings excessive and did this breach the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see Lyubomir Popov v. Bulgaria , no. 69855/01, 7 January 2010, and Zikatanova and Others v. Bulgaria , no. 45806/11, 12 December 2019)?

3. Did the applicant have at her disposal an effective domestic remedy for her Convention complaints, as required by Article 13 of the Convention?