site.btaStrasbourg Court to Look into Two Property Complaints by former King of Bulgaria and His Sister, Dismisses the Rest of the Case

Strasbourg, April 12 (BTA) - The European Court of Human Rights announced Thursday that it has decided to look into two complaints brought by the former king of Bulgaria, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his sister Maria-Luisa Chrobok alleging violation of their property rights as they attempted to restitute former properties of the Crown.

These complaints centre, first, on a Parliamentary decision of 2009 imposing a moratorium on the commercial use and sale of properties which had been returned to the royal family and, second, on the domestic courts' decisions recognizing the State as owner of two of those properties, namely the Saragyol complex and the Sitnyakovo estate.

The Court dismissed the complaint brought by the former king and his sister as regards another property, the Krichim estate, finding that the national courts had rejected their restitution claims to the estate in detailed and well-reasoned judgments.

The Court also dismissed the complaints brought by five other members of the royal family, finding that they could not claim to be a victim of a violation of the European Convention. In particular, they had not shown that they had ever been in possession of or used the properties at issue or suffered any other disadvantage as a result of the 2009 moratorium.

The decision dismissing these complaints is final.

The ECHR decision recalls that monarchy was abolished in Bulgaria in 1946 and the following year Parliament passed legislation (1947 Act) confiscating royal properties for use by the State. In 1998 the Constitutional Court found that the 1947 Act violated the Constitution and the applicants subsequently sought the return of properties previously used by the royal family.

Between 1999 and 2004 all but one of the properties - the Krichim estate with a palace, auxiliary buildings and land - was transferred into the possession of the royal family. Further proceedings against the State over the estate were unsuccessful.

The Bulgarian authorities in turn brought proceedings against the applicants over all but two of the properties which had been returned to the royal family. The State eventually won in 2016 the claims concerning two of the properties: the Saragyol complex, a hunting lodge, and the Sitnyakovo estate, another palace and its surroundings.

Most of the proceedings over the remaining properties are apparently still pending.

In the meantime in 2009 Parliament imposed a moratorium on the commercial use and sale of the properties which had been returned to the royal family. This moratorium is still in force.

The Court considered that it could not, on the basis of the case file, determine the admissibility and merits of the complaints brought by the former king and his sister as regards the parliamentary decision of 2009, their inability to challenge this decision and the domestic courts' decisions on the
Saragyol complex and the Sitnyakovo estate. It therefore decided that it was necessary to give notice to the Bulgarian Government of these complaints.

The government has five months to reach an amicable agreement with the former king and his sister before the court makes a final decision on the claims. The legal representative of the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas, Mihail Ekimdjiev, told lex.bg that he hopes this time will be enough "to come to a civilized and just agreement to avoid a situation in which a former monarch and prime minister is suing his country".

Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was Bulgaria's Prime Minister between 2001 and 2005.

However, the Court held, unanimously, that there were no grounds for their complaint about the domestic courts' decisions refusing to declare them the owners of the Krichim estate and declared it inadmissible. Unlike other properties they had claimed, this estate had never been transferred into their possession on the basis of their alleged restitution rights. Nor could they have had any legitimate expectation of obtaining restitution of the Krichim estate or of being recognised as its owners.

In particular the courts had found that the Krichim estate had been in the adverse possession of a State body, the Intendancy of the King's Civil List, and that there was no proof that the buildings had been paid for with the King's own money; on the contrary, they had apparently been financed by the State, said the Court.

It transpires from the Court's announcement that the applicants took the matter to the European Court of Human Rights on 16 June 2010, 2 August 2012 and 13 January 2017.