site.btaStrasbourg Court Sets Precedent by Revising Judgment against Bulgaria and Declaring Application Inadmissible

In a precedent-setting judgment, the European Court of Human Rights on July 4 revised its earlier judgment against Bulgaria and declared the application inadmissible, the Bulgarian Justice Ministry said in a press release on Monday.

The revision was delivered at a request from the Bulgarian Government Agents who argued that the conduct of the applicant and of the lawyer that represented him constituted abuse of the right of application.

The applicant, Y.T., a Bulgarian national born in 1970 and resident of Stara Zagora (Southeastern Bulgaria), lodged an application with the Court as a transgender person who had begun the process of transitioning and whose request for gender reassignment (female to male) had been refused by the Bulgarian courts.

On July 9, 2020, the Court found that there had been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention because in 2016 the domestic authorities had refused to legally recognise the applicant's gender reassignment, rejecting a 2015 request to that end without providing an adequate and relevant reason. The Court also awarded the applicant EUR 7,500 in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 4,150 in respect of costs and expenses.

On December 29, 2023, the Government Agents requested a revision of the Court's judgment. They had discovered that on an unspecified date in 2016 the applicant, represented by the same lawyer as before the Court, had initiated a separate procedure from that giving rise to his application to the Court. In that second procedure the applicant had requested to have his gender reassignment legally recognised, his first name, patronymic and surname legally changed, and his gender marker and civil identification number amended on the register of births. The Sofia District Court had granted that second request in a decision of March 13, 2017, which had become final on May 30, 2017. The Government submit that, pursuant to that judicial decision, the data in question were changed on the register of births on June 14, 2017.

The Government complained that there had been an abuse of the right of application on the ground that the applicant had not informed the Court of the events that had occurred in connection with the judicial proceedings leading to the legal recognition of his gender reassignment.

"In the present case, the applicant and his representative knowingly failed to inform it of the facts relating to this second set of proceedings [. . .], even though he had initiated them himself through his representative, who was the same person who was also acting before the Court. The Court notes that this omission is all the more glaring given that the applicant submitted his observations in response to those of the Government and made claims for just satisfaction on 24 July 2017, that is, after the changes to the civil-status registers had been made at his request, the changes in question having taken place on 14 June 2017," the Court stated in its judgment of July 4, 2024.

The Court concluded that the applicant acted in disregard of his obligation to inform it of all facts relevant to the examination of the application, and of his duty to cooperate with it in the interests of the proper administration of justice.

The Court decided to revise in its entirety the Court's judgment delivered on July 9, 2020 and declared the application inadmissible.

The applicant must voluntarily repay the EUR 7,500 received from the State in respect of non-pecuniary damage and EUR 4,150 in respect of costs and expenses. Failing this, the State may sue him for recovery of these amounts.