Indicator history

Since the beginning of the political changes in the early 1990s the political representation of the Turkish minority has been practically monopolized by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS). It is obvious that the Movement is an ethnically based political party. This obviously contradicts Art. 11 (4) of the Constitution of Bulgaria: “There shall be no political parties on ethnic, racial or religious lines...”. A  Constitutional Court decision defined that the Movement for Rights and Freedoms is established and functioning in accordance with the Constitution.

The European Court of Human Rights has repeatedly sentenced Bulgaria for denying the right of association by refusing to register OMO Ilinden Pirin - an organization that promotes the recognition of Macedonian minority in Bulgaria. In 1999 OMO Ilinden Pirin was registered as a party and in 2000 was declared unconstitutional under Art. 11 of the Constitution. In 2005 and in 2006, the ECHR rules against Bulgaria for violation of the right of association. The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe does monitoring of the implementation of the judgment, which is closed in 2009. The last Ruling (CASE OF THE UNITED MACEDONIAN ORGANISATION ILINDEN AND OTHERS v. BULGARIA (No. 2)(Application no. 34960/04)) of 18 October 2011 imposes another fine. Regarding the Bulgarian Government’s position the above cited ruling says: “The grounds given by the national courts for their refusal to register Ilinden could be split in two groups. The first consisted of the real ones – that the registration of an organisation of the Macedonian minority would, by endowing it with a legal status, imperil the country’s sovereignty and the nation’s unity. All three levels of court had relied on such grounds, which were indicative of the authorities’ enduring prejudice against the Macedonian minority. The second group consisted of formal grounds whose purpose was to conceal the real ones. The first such ground – a purported problem with the number of members of Ilinden’s managing council – could have been spotted by the first-instance court and easily rectified. The second one – the bar on associations pursuing political aims – was equally just a pretext to refuse registration, as evident from the earlier refusals to register Ilinden.”