Published on 22 May 2023

THIRD SECTION

Application no. 10351/18 Kornelia Petrova Ninova against Bulgaria lodged on 19 February 2018 communicated on 2 May 2023

STATEMENT OF FACTS

1. The applicant, Ms Kornelia Petrova Ninova, is a Bulgarian national who was born in 1969 and lives in Sofia. She is represented before the Court by Mr M. Ekimdzhiev and Ms K. Boncheva, lawyers practising in Plovdiv.

2. The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicant and as emerging on the basis of publicly available materials, may be summarised as follows.

3 . Since May 2016, when the applicant was elected as Chair of the National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (until April 1990, the Bulgarian Communist Party), she has been that party’s leader. She has been a member of Parliament for that party since 2009.

4 . At the parliamentary elections in March 2017 the coalition led by the Bulgarian Socialist Party, BSP for Bulgaria, obtained eighty out of the two hundred and forty seats in the Bulgarian National Assembly.

5 . GERB, the political party which had obtained the biggest number of seats in those elections, ninety-five, entered into a coalition with an existing coalition, United Patriots, which had obtained twenty-seven seats, and in May 2017 that coalition formed a government led by Mr Boyko Borisov.

6 . The Bulgarian Socialist Party thus became the main opposition party in that Parliament. The applicant was the head of its parliamentary group.

7 . At its first sitting in April 2017, the National Assembly elected Mr Dimitar Glavchev, a member from GERB, as its Speaker.

8 . On 12 November 2017 the Prime Minister, Mr Borisov, said the following during a media interview:

“... at the same time, there are still people in Parliament who have been involved in drug trafficking, people who have bought votes, moreover from prisoners, people who call the Bulgarians ‘morons’.”

9 . At the parliamentary sitting on 15 November 2017 three members for the Bulgarian Socialist Party proposed that the Prime Minister be summoned to the National Assembly to explain his words. The proposal was put to a vote twice. The first time it was rejected by ninety-seven votes to ninety-one, with five abstentions, and the second time it was rejected by one hundred and one votes to ninety-three, with three abstentions.

10 . After the voting, the applicant was given the floor to make a declaration on behalf of her parliamentary group.

11 . The relevant part of the verbatim record of the sitting reads:

“ Kornelia Ninova (BSP for Bulgaria) : Mr Speaker, ladies and gentlemen, members from GERB and United Patriots! Are you aware of what you are doing with your voting and conduct in relation to our proposal to hear the Prime Minister?! The Prime Minister of Bulgaria, whoever he might be, asserts publicly [that] there are people in the Bulgarian National Assembly who engage in drug trafficking and buy votes from prisoners. And you excuse this statement with the reading of newspapers?! What does that mean? Firstly, I note, and it is none of our business, but I ask you to think about it: why are you subjecting yourself to this humiliation for the sake of this man? Do you not have the dignity of members of Parliament, whom this same man called idlers?

Speaker Dimitar Glavchev : Ms Ninova! In the course of the previous sitting I warned you that I would apply strictly the requirements of ...

Kornelia Ninova : He called the Parliament idlers.

Speaker Dimitar Glavchev : ... the [Rules of the National Assembly]. Please choose your expressions!

Kornelia Ninova : I am quoting the Prime Minister, who said that we are idlers, without specifying who. Does that not concern you, colleagues? Secondly, do you not permit criminal convictions to be handed down this way – in advance, similar to the one that [a former Minister of Internal Affairs] pronounced against the medical doctors? And Bulgaria was condemned for that! And the whole Bulgarian people is paying for that! What is this? A total violation of the principles of the rule of law, under which no one has the right to hand down criminal convictions until the Bulgarian court has ruled. Thirdly, why do you allow a Bulgarian Prime Minister, whoever he is – if some day he is from another political party, I will address you in the same way: do not allow a Bulgarian Prime Minister to destroy totally the institutions in Bulgaria. In the parliamentary republic ...

Speaker Dimitar Glavchev : Ms Ninova! You no longer have the floor and ...

Kornelia Ninova : ... where the parliament is the most ...

Speaker Dimitar Glavchev : ... on the basis of Rule 162 § 1 I remove you from the sitting! ( Noise, interjections, exclamations from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’ ) Quaestors, please! Ms Ninova, I remove you on the basis of Rule 162 § 1 of the Rules – for one sitting.

Kornelia Ninova : What have I infringed?

Speaker Dimitar Glavchev : I warned you several times.

Kornelia Ninova : What have I infringed?

Speaker Dimitar Glavchev : Did you not hear what you were saying?! ( the Speaker Dimitar Glavchev turns off the microphone. The member Kornelia Ninova continues to speak with her microphone turned off. Knocking on the banks from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’ and shouts: ‘Resign’! )

Pursuant to Rule 162 § 1 of the Rules [of the National Assembly] ... ( chanting from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’: ‘Resign!’ ) the Speaker can remove you for more than one sitting – I will remove you for one only ( the member Kornelia Ninova speaks with her microphone turned off ) – but no more than three sittings, which I do not do. A member who insults the National Assembly, the members of the Council of Ministers and ... ( the member Kornelia Ninova speaks with her microphone turned off. Noise, banging on the banks from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’. Members from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’ approach the tribune )

Please, Ms Ninova! Ms Ninova, please! ( the member Kornelia Ninova does not wish to leave the tribune ) Please, Ms Ninova!

Anton Kutev (BSP for Bulgaria, away from the microphones) : Resign! Today you are no longer fit for here!

Speaker Dimitar Glavchev : Mr Kutev! Mr Kutev, I suspend you for two sittings on the basis of Rule 162 § 1! ( Applause from GERB. Loud noise and interjections from the members from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’, who continue to stand around the tribune )

Quaestors, please! Quaestors, please bring order to the room!

You categorically cannot say whatever you wish, even in a declaration! You cannot say whatever you wish! ( the member Kornelia Ninova continues to stand on the tribune and speaks with her microphone turned off )

There is a way to request a resignation. Please, you know where the registry is, you are welcome to do so! ( Remarks from the member Anton Kutev )

Mr Kutev! Mr Kutev! Ms Ninova, leave the tribune and the room! Leave the tribune and the room! It is not only you who cannot say whatever you wish in a declaration! There are Rules [of the National Assembly]. I am sorry! I am sorry! ( Members from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’ stand around the tribune; loud noise and remarks )

Mr Svilenski and all others who are not sitting in your seats, go back to your seats! Ms Ninova, leave the room! You are not at a plenary meeting of the Bulgarian Socialist Party! ( Exclamations from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’: ‘Eee!’ Applause from GERB )

Dear fellow members from ‘BSP for Bulgaria’, take your seats! Ms Ninova, leave the room! You are not at a plenary meeting of [the Bulgarian Socialist Party]. I say this especially for you, Ms Ninova! Leave the room! A ten-minute recess until Ms Ninova leaves the room. I am convening an extraordinary Speakers’ Council during the recess.”

12 . On 16 November 2017 eighty-eight members of Parliament, including the applicant, proposed that the Speaker be prematurely removed from his post in connection with his conduct the previous day. That proposal was included in the order of business of the National Assembly for 17 November 2017, but before it could be debated and voted on, the Speaker resigned.

RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK

13 . By Article 73 of the 1991 Constitution, the organisation and business of the National Assembly are governed by the Constitution itself and by rules adopted by the Assembly. The forty-fourth National Assembly, whose term began in April 2017 and ended in March 2021, adopted its rules on 27 April 2017, and they came into force on 2 May 2017.

14 . By Rule 155 § 1 of those Rules, the behaviour of Assembly members had to be based on respect for the Assembly’s authority and towards other members and outsiders, and was not to impede normal parliamentary business or order in the Assembly building.

15 . By Rule 155 § 2, Assembly members could not make personal attacks or use insulting words, gestures or threats towards anyone, or act in an undignified manner or a manner disrupting the order of the sitting.

16 . Breaches of those prohibitions could be sanctioned with (a) a warning, (b) an admonishment, (c) a reprimand, (d) a taking of the floor, (e) a removal from a sitting, and (f) a removal from three sittings (Rule 156).

17 . The Speaker could give a warning to a member straying from the topic under discussion (Rule 157). The Speaker could give an admonishment to a member using insulting words or gestures or making threats to other members (Rule 158). The Speaker could give a reprimand to a member disrupting the order of the sitting or acting in a disorderly manner (Rule 159).

18 . The Speaker could take away the floor from a member who had already been given two warnings, admonishments or reprimands, or continued speaking after the end of the allotted time despite an invitation to yield the floor (Rule 160).

19 . The Speaker could remove a member from one sitting if that member (a) was objecting against another disciplinary measure in a rude and undignified manner, (b) continuously prevented normal parliamentary business, or (c) was voting with another member’s electronic card (Rule 161).

20 . The Speaker could remove a member for more than one but not more than three sittings if that member (a) insulted the Assembly, members of the Council of Ministers, the President or Vice-President of the Republic, or other State authorities, or (b) called for, or engaged in, violence in the Assembly’s room or building (Rule 162 § 1).

21 . Members who had been removed did not receive pay in respect of the sittings from which they had been removed (Rule 162 § 2).

22 . The removed member could challenge this disciplinary measure before the Speaker within three days, and the Speakers’ Council – which consisted of the Speaker, the Deputy Speakers, and the heads of the parliamentary groups or their deputies – could then confirm, quash or vary the measure by way of a reasoned decision (Rule 162 § 3).

COMPLAINTS

23 . The applicant complains under Article 10 of the Convention that the Speaker deprived her of the possibility to continue speaking from the parliamentary tribune and excluded her from one parliamentary sitting on account of the remarks that she made in the course of the sitting on 15 November 2017.

24 . The applicant also complains under Article 13 of the Convention that she did not have an effective remedy in respect of the alleged breach of Article 10 of the Convention since the Speaker’s decision could only be challenged before the Speakers’ Council.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Were the interruption of the applicant’s speech in the National Assembly and her exclusion from one parliamentary sitting “interference” with her right to freedom of expression within the meaning of Article 10 § 1 of the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis , Karácsony and Others v. Hungary [GC], nos. 42461/13 and 44357/13, § 120, ECHR 2016 (extracts), and Szanyi v. Hungary , no. 35493/13, § 26, 8 November 2016)? If so, was that “interference” “prescribed by law” and “necessary in a democratic society” to attain one or more of the aims set out in Article 10 § 2?

2. Has there been a breach of Article 13 of the Convention? In particular, did the applicant have an effective domestic remedy in respect of the alleged breach of her rights under Article 10 of the Convention?