29331/22

THIRD SECTION CASE OF STANOEV AND OTHERS v. BULGARIA (Application no. 29331/22)             JUDGMENT   STRASBOURG 30 September 2025       This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.   In the case of Stanoev and Others v. Bulgaria, The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:  Peeter Roosma, President,  Diana Kovatcheva,  Canòlic Mingorance Cairat, judges, and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar, Having regard to: the application (no. 29331/22) against the Republic of Bulgaria lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 10 June 2022 by nineteen Bulgarian nationals, whose relevant details are listed in the appended table (“the applicants”) and who were represented by Ms D. Pavlova, a lawyer practising in Sofia. Two of the applicants passed away after the lodging of the application and their heirs expressed their wish to pursue the application; they also authorised Ms Pavlova to represent them; the decision to give notice of the complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 concerning the excessive duration of restitution proceedings to the Bulgarian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Tsocheva from the Ministry of Justice, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application; the parties’ observations; Having deliberated in private on 9 September 2025, Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date: SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE 1.  The case concerns the length of restitution proceedings under the Agricultural Land Act. 2.  An ancestor of the applicants owned agricultural land, at the time of collectivisation situated near Sofia, but later on, with the city’s expansion, taken for housing development. Following the adoption of denationalisation legislation in the 1990s, the local Agriculture Department issued three decisions in December 1996, March 2007 and October 2010, confirming the applicants’ entitlement under the restitution legislation, but holding that they were to receive compensation in lieu of restitution in kind. A further decision of November 2010 set the value of such compensation. Under the Agricultural Land Act, compensation in lieu of restitution can take the form of comparable State or municipally-owned land, if available, or compensation bonds (for an overview of the applicable domestic law, see Zikatanova and Others v. Bulgaria, no. 45806/11, §§ 46-59, 12 December 2019). 3.  The compensation due has not yet been provided to the applicants. 4.  The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the restitution procedure was too lengthy. THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT        preliminary issues 5.  Applicants Ms Rayna Borisova Lambreva-Petkova and Ms Yordanka Stoyanova Mirkova passed away in 2023, and their heirs indicated in the appended table expressed their wish to pursue the application. The Government did not contest the heirs’ standing to do so. The Court finds thus that the heirs of Ms Lambreva-Petkova and Ms Mirkova have standing to pursue the proceedings. It will continue to refer to them below as applicants, for easy reference. 6.  Furthermore, in their application form the applicants indicated that the proceedings concerned 41,700 sq. m (4.17 hectares) of land. At the same time, in the Agriculture Department’s decision of 24 November 2010 (see paragraph 2 above), which the applicants have not contested, they were found to be entitled to compensation for 34,700 sq. m (3.47 hectares) of land. The Court will therefore proceed on the basis of this decision.        admissibility 7.  The Government argued that the applicants had failed to exhaust the available domestic remedies, seeing that they had not resorted to the different procedures under the Code of Administrative Procedure to counter an administrative body’s unlawful failure to act, and had not explicitly asked the Agriculture Department to complete the restitution proceedings. 8.  The Government considered moreover that the application was time-barred. They referred to a court judgment of 20 December 2017 issued in proceedings initiated by one of the applicants, ordering the Agriculture Department to compile within one month a list of State-owned plots of land available for compensation and present it to the Minister of Agriculture. The list was prepared in February 2018, but this did not speed up the procedure. According to the Government, the six-month period under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, as worded before the entry into force of Protocol No. 15, had started to run when the deadline to comply with the judgment of 20 December 2017 had expired. 9.  The applicants contested the Government’s objections, pointing in particular that their case concerned a continuous situation. 10.  The Court points out that the process of restitution is a complex one, requiring the accommodation of the interests of numerous interested parties (see, for a similar consideration, Zikatanova and Others, cited above, § 122). The Government made statements in the same sense in their submissions on the merits of the present case, explaining why the restitution claims of the applicants could not be satisfied separately from those of the remaining former owners in Sofia (see paragraphs 15-16 below). The Court cannot thus envisage how the remedies indicated by the Government in paragraph 7 above could have brought about the resolution of the applicants’ case, and dismisses the Government’s non-exhaustion objection. 11.  As to the additional inadmissibility plea raised (see paragraph 8 above), the Court agrees with the applicants that their case concerns a continuous situation. The restitution procedure in Sofia has not been completed, and any time-limits related to the enforcement of a particular decision taken within that procedure do not seem to have any relevance with regard to the six‑months rule under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention (see, for a similar finding, Petkova and Others v. Bulgaria [Committee], nos. 19130/04 and 2 others, § 33, 25 September 2012). 12.  The Court notes lastly that the application is not manifestly ill‑founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. It must therefore be declared admissible.     merits 13.  The applicants reiterated their complaints. They contended that the delay in the proceedings was unjustified, and that it was entirely imputable to the authorities. 14.  The Government pointed out that the applicable legislation provided for no deadlines to complete restitution proceedings, and that the restitution process was a complex one. 15.  They submitted a document prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture in November 2024, according to which compensation under the Agricultural Land Act has been delayed in Sofia due to the need to await the outcome of all individual restitution procedures. The land available for compensation can only be allocated once the scope of the former owners’ restitution entitlement is established, to satisfy all claims. As a result, part of the compensation, to be set as a percentage applicable to all former owners, has to be in the form of bonds. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, currently in Sofia about 13,500 groups of previous owners (or their heirs) have opted for compensation through land, and await the advancement of the restitution procedure. 16.  The Government pointed out on the basis of the above that compensation could not be allocated individually to former owners, but had to be distributed in the entire region. If the restitution claims of the applicants were to be satisfied separately, this would prejudice all other former owners. 17.  The Court notes that the applicants’ entitlement to compensation in lieu of restitution on kind was recognised in three decisions issued between December 1996 and October 2010 (see paragraph 2 above). The compensation procedure has not been completed, and further delays are expected, in light of the explanations given (see paragraph 15 above). 18.  The Court has on previous occasions acknowledged the complexity of the restitution process in Bulgaria, but has found that this factor alone cannot justify excessive delays such as the one in the present case (see, for example, Zikatanova and Others, cited above, § 122, and Panayotov v. Bulgaria [Committee], no. 66491/14, § 26, 17 November 2020). It has held that it is for the State to organise its judicial and administrative systems in such a way as to guarantee the rights under the Convention (see Zikatanova and Others, cited above, § 119, with further references). The Court has also criticised the lack of flexibility of the applicable legislation, seeing this as a factor contributing to the excessive length of restitution proceedings, and has found violations of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 in a number of cases (see Popov and Chonin v. Bulgaria, no. 36094/08, § 46, 17 February 2015; and Panayotov, cited above, § 27, with further references). 19.  The Court sees no reason to reach a different conclusion in the present case, where the restitution procedure has lasted for almost thirty years after the applicants’ legitimate expectation in that regard was recognised. 20.  Accordingly, there has been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION 21.  The applicants claimed approximatively 22.6 million Bulgarian levs (BGN), equivalent of about 11.6 million euros (EUR), in respect of pecuniary damage. According to an expert report commissioned and submitted by them, this was the value of the right of use of their collectivised land for the period between 1996 and 2020. In respect of non-pecuniary damage, the applicants claimed EUR 100,000 for each of them. 22.  The Government contested the claims. 23.  As in the previous similar cases, the Court accepts that the applicants have suffered some pecuniary damage on account of the delay in the restitution proceedings (see, for example, Rasheva v. Bulgaria [Committee], no. 66993/13, § 37, 13 October 2020). Having regard to the duration of the restitution procedure and the size of the land claimed by the applicants, as well as the uncertainty as to the type of compensation to be awarded at the domestic level (see Velcheva v. Bulgaria (just satisfaction), no. 35355/08, § 15, 9 February 2017), noting also that the award to be made is only meant to cover any damage suffered as a result of the delays in the restitution procedure, but the applicants retain their entitlements under the domestic legislation, the Court awards jointly to them EUR 5,000 under the present head. 24.  In respect of non-pecuniary damage, having regard to the circumstances of the case, the Court awards jointly to the applicants EUR 5,000, plus any tax that may be chargeable to them. 25.  The applicants did not claim the reimbursement of any costs and expenses. FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY, Holds that the heirs of Ms Rayna Borisova Lambreva-Petkova and Ms Yordanka Stoyanova Mirkova have standing to pursue the proceedings; Declares the application admissible; Holds that there has been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention; Holds  that the respondent State is to pay within three months, jointly to all applicants, to be distributed among them in accordance with their inheritance shares, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement:  EUR 5,000 (five thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of pecuniary damage;   EUR 5,000 (five thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage;   that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points; Dismisses the remainder of the applicants’ claim for just satisfaction. Done in English, and notified in writing on 30 September 2025, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.    Olga Chernishova Peeter Roosma  Deputy Registrar President   APPENDIX List of applicants: No. Applicant’s Name Year of birth Place of residence 1. Ivan Stoykov STANOEV Sofia 2. Rumyana Trayanova ANGELOVA Sofia 3. Emiliya Kirilova BONEVA Sofia 4. Asen Ignatov GEORGIEV Sofia 5. Ignat Pavlov GEORGIEV Sofia 6. Rositsa Ignatova GEORGIEVA Sofia 7. Goran Ivanov GOCHEV Sofia 8. Biser Stanoychev IVANOV Sofia 9. Rayna Borisova LAMBREVA-PETKOVA Died in 2023 (see additional table below)   10. Yordanka Stoyanova MIRKOVA Died in 2023 (see additional table below)   11. Georgi Petrov PAUNOV Sofia 12. Georgi Milchev STANOEV Sofia 13. Stoyko Milchev STANOEV Sofia 14. Zorka Kostadinova STANOEVA Sofia 15. Elena Stoyanova TAHMIZYAN Sofia 16. Krasimira Ivanova TODOROVA Sofia 17. Krasimira Stanoycheva TODOROVA Sofia 18. Trayan Asenov TRAYANOV Sofia 19. Lyubka Stoyanova VACHEVA Sofia   Decedent Heirs Rayna Borisova LAMBREVA-PETKOVA Died in 2023 Ani Zdravetsova STOYANOVA Born in 1980 Yordanka Stoyanova MIRKOVA Died in 2023 Zdravko Yordanov MIRKOV Born in 1942   Tatyana Zdravkova VLADOVA Born in 1972   Martin Stoyanov YORDANOV Born in 1990