site.btaDomestic Violence Victim Wins Case against Bulgaria at European Court of Human Rights

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in favour of a Bulgarian woman who was a victim of repeated domestic violence. Bulgaria must pay the victim EUR 10,000 in compensation and cover the costs in relation to the proceedings, equal to EUR 3,000.

ECHR’s unanimous decision reads that Bulgaria lacks existing legislation against domestic violence and that the Bulgarian prosecution magistracy has neglected to initiate criminal proceedings against the perpetrator in that case. The decision also reads that freedom from torture and inhuman or degrading treatment, guaranteed under the European Convention on Human Rights, was violated.

The victim, aged 15 at the time of the events, had been beaten, kicked and strangled by a 23-year-old man with whom she lived. The court noted that the Bulgarian state had failed to protect her, even though she had suffered repeated domestic violence.

ECHR’s decision also reads that, even though it cannot be claimed that Bulgarian legislation has failed to tackle domestic violence at all, its provisions are formulated and interpreted by the relevant authorities in a way which deprives some victims of domestic violence of the possibility to prosecute perpetrators and get effective protection.

The Bulgarian authorities' lack of official comprehensive statistics can no longer be interpreted as an oversight on their part, given the scale of the problem with domestic violence in Bulgaria. Their refusal to ratify the Istanbul Convention can be regarded as an indicator of their commitment to effectively combat domestic violence, ECHR also says.