The court’s decision refers to the moratorium on the so-called royal estates, which was imposed by the first government of Boyko Borissov in 2009.
Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his sister Maria-Louise Hrobok condemned Bulgaria in Strasbourg for a moratorium on their forests imposed in 2009 by the government, which banned the family from disposing of them and using them until a special law came into force.
However, such a law has not yet been adopted, and the moratorium applies to all property returned to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha after the fall of the communist regime.
Meanwhile, the family is attacking the moratorium before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and with today’s ruling the court allows the state and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to reach an agreement within 6 months for compensation to be paid by the Bulgarian government for the material damage. So far, the court has awarded only 5,000 euros in court costs, which the government must pay.
With today’s decision, the ECtHR unanimously acknowledged that there had been a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the protection of property by prohibiting any commercial exploitation of forest land.
A violation of the right to a fair trial was also established, as there was no mechanism for judicial control over the imposed moratorium. The issue of the alleged violation of the Convention, which guarantees fair compensation, remains pending.
The court found that the actions of the Bulgarian authorities had placed a disproportionate individual burden on Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his sister. The ECtHR rejected some of the family’s allegations as inadmissible, including a complaint concerning the restitution of the Sarugyol and Sitnyakovo properties.
The cases started in 2009 with the coming to power of GERB
The latest decision in one of the cases for the so-called “Royal Properties” is from the end of July for the residence “Vrana”. A panel of the Sofia Court of Appeals accepted that it was owned by Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and the ruling was clearly contrary to the decision of the Sofia City Court (SCC), Sofia City Court, Sofia City Court. The case is still pending, as is the case for 16,500 decares of forest land in Rila mountain.
In October 2020, the Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC) finally ruled that the Tsarska Bistrica Palace was owned by Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and his sister Maria-Louise. With this decision the state lost for the first time one of the cases for the so-called royal estates. In this case, the state was ordered to pay over BGN 81,000 to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha for costs.
The trial was one of many for the royal estates, and before adjudicating, the panel sought an interpretation from the Constitutional Court. After my release, the process was resumed, and in their motives the magistrates referred to it. The interpretation was on the question of what are the legal consequences of the repeal of single-effect laws and specifically of the decision of the Constitutional Court of 1998, which repealed the Law on Nationalization of Royal Property of 1947.
Prior to the SCC’s decision, two courts had recognized the two as state property. Other decisions on “royal affairs” were pronounced in favor of the state – for the properties “Krichim”, “Sitnyakovo” and “Sarugyol”.
The state’s expenditures in 2017 on “royal affairs” are about BGN 2.4 million, although during the Triple Coalition a special parliamentary commission on royal estates collected enough documentary material, on the basis of which it did not come to the conclusion that the estates were were state.
However, the state claimed property and the ruling majority adopted a moratorium on the use of property by Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha “until the adoption of a law on royal property.”
No law has been passed, the moratorium has been lifted, and no one in government has commented in recent years on how the government intends to solve the problem.
Meanwhile, a panel of the Supreme Court of Cassation in 2012 ruled that the Krichim farm was state-owned, and one of the reasons was that the Constitutional Court’s repeal of the Royal Property Act in 1947 had no legal consequences for their status. After this decision for “Krichim”, all courts began to cascade cases with such a motive in favor of the state. In 2017, the state signaled that it was hesitant in its claims to the royal estates and was ready for an agreement. However, due to “public opinion”, according to Dnevnik sources, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov abandoned the idea.
The then Minister of Justice Tsetska Tsacheva announced the turn at a special press conference (December 4, 2017), when it became clear that by that time the costs of the two ministries – regional development and agriculture, which are conducting cases on behalf of the state, have reached over BGN 2.4 million
