Budinova and Chaprazov v Bulgaria and Behar and Gutman v Bulgaria (third-party intervention, pending)

13 December 2019

Facts

These two cases that are very similar. Both involve members of minority groups (in one case, Roma, and in the other, Jews) who challenged hate speech. In particular, they were challenging racist comments made by a Member of Parliament for a far-right political party in Bulgaria, who has made repeated grotesque comments about Jews and Roma. In particular, his public comments about Roma have spread hateful, vicious stereotypes about Roma and crime. 

Roma and Jews brought civil cases against this politician, claiming that he had violated Bulgaria’s anti-discrimination laws. The national courts in Bulgaria found in favour of the politician, saying that his racist statements did not put Roma or Jews in a less favourable position. The people who brought the cases appealed all the way to Bulgaria’s Supreme Court and, after they were unsuccessful there, turned to the European Court of Human Rights.

The ERRC’s Third-Party Intervention

The ERRC was not involved in the case before it reached the European Court. When the European Court made the case public, we asked if we could make submissions as a “third-party intervener”. This means that we can send written comments to the Court designed to help the Court with its ruling. The European Court accepted and on 29 November 2019 we submitted our third-party intervention. 

We said the time had come for the Court to use the word “antigypsyism” in its case law. Council of Europe and EU bodies regularly use the word, which was a much more effective way of describing the experience of Roma than saying, as the European Court usually does, that “as a result of their turbulent history and constant uprooting, the Roma have become a specific type of disadvantaged and vulnerable minority”. We asked the Court to imagine what it is like to be a Romani person in Europe today. We argued that antigypsyism is rife in Bulgaria and noted how public figures in Bulgaria target Roma with revolting comments which had serious consequences – promoting forced evictions of Roma from the informal housing in which many are reduced to living. We argued that the European Convention on Human Rights requires domestic courts to protect Roma against stereotypes powerful public figures use to promote antigypsyism. Citing the Rabat Plan of Action, a UN text reflecting international consensus on how to balance freedom of speech and the rights of people targeted by hate speech, we noted that barriers to access to justice made it unusual for Roma to be able to challenge hate speech in court. So when cases finally come to court, Romani people pay careful attention to what happens; Romani people’s trust in the judiciary is at stake in the handling of these cases. Finally, we argued that historical and ongoing antigypsyism in Europe had two consequences for the Court’s consideration of such cases: (1) when challenging hate speech spreading antigypsyism, however generalised, individual Romani people must be considered “victims” for the purposes of being able to bring cases to the European Court (i.e. they must have standing to bring such cases); (2) there is a positive obligation for national courts, when dealing with civil or administrative cases Roma bring challenging hate speech, to identify and name stereotypes common to antigypsyism and to protect Romani people by applying proportionate sanctions to public figures who promote antigypsyism by spreading such stereotypes.

The Court’s summary of the facts in the Budinova case can be found here; in the Behar case it can be found here.

The ERRC’s third-party intervention can be found here.