{"id":28850,"date":"2022-06-09T09:39:41","date_gmt":"2022-06-09T07:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bird.bg\/?p=28850"},"modified":"2023-04-08T11:18:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-08T09:18:37","slug":"our-organization-is-expensive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bird.bg\/en\/our-organization-is-expensive\/","title":{"rendered":"Our organization is expensive."},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, somehow, by the way, a piece of news crept into the public domain, which practically no one covered. In
\n an interview<\/strong>
\n<\/a> on BTV two weeks ago, Justice Minister Nadezhda Yordanova announced that the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has begun “serially” to communicate complaints of Bulgarian citizens against the actions of KPKONPI. The communication of an appeal is the penultimate phase before the case is examined on its merits and rendered a decision, and in some cases this can happen quite quickly, within a year. Along with all the other scandals, parliamentary circuses, quarrels and any other chaff,<\/strong> this revelation somehow sank between the drops. However, from BIRD we decided to explore what it is all about, as well as to put this research in the context of the broader framework of what KPKONPI does (and does not). <\/strong><\/p>\n

ECHR as Last Roubezh vs Conpirate<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Our studies showed that these are (at least) 4 cases communicated by the ECHR to the Bulgarian state on April 8. These are complaints 31239\/11, 36250\/12, 21039\/13 and 10599\/14. The fact that they are communicated on the same date in principle means that the judges in Strasbourg group these 4 cases as a common, general problem<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And there is definitely a problem<\/strong> \u2013 and that is that KPKONPI operates to a large extent in the gray sphere of quasi-judicial control. That is, in theory, there is judicial control, but in practice there is not \u2013 as far as ” control” is superficial, formalistic and automated<\/strong>. The subject of the first case is a confiscatory claim for BGN 1.7 million, and the main question of the ECtHR is whether the court in Kardzhali has correctly established that the confiscated assets are of criminal origin. In the second case, the questions are again whether KPKONPI has proven the criminal origin of the seized assets, as well as what imposes the extremely long period in which the distraints are active (for nearly 15 years now).<\/p>\n

The third case concerns confiscation of BGN 200,000 in Vratsa, and the ECHR asks (again!) whether the link between specific crimes and confiscated assets has been established. Otherwise, between the second and third cases there is another general issue concerning the partitioning of access to justice<\/strong> \u2013 as far as the high appellate and cassation state fees were clearly not within the power of the parties concerned. In the fourth case, the case is perhaps the most strange, as KPKONPI has maintained distraints for nine (!) years, without, however, bringing an action in court \u2013 with the only argument that there is a criminal case pending against the affected persons. Various court panels in Sofia, Plovdiv and Burgas have blanchedly and repeatedly<\/strong> used this argument to refuse the annulment of the distraints. The situation is similar in the second case \u2013 there is no confiscatory claim to this day (there are only distraints), against the backdrop of a dragging criminal case since 2009 and until now.<\/p>\n

In general, this paints a rather disturbing picture, which can be summarized as follows:<\/p>\n