CEDH · CASELAW;COMMUNICATEDCASES;ENG — 23 mai 2024

.s800EAC49 { font-size:12pt } .s379BC09C { margin-top:36pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-align:right } .sBB9EE52A { font-family:Arial } .s10950C61 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:0pt; text-indent:14.2pt; text-align:justify } .s5E1364CA { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:12pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid; font-size:14pt } .s339D85E6 { margin-top:0pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s665E407E { margin-top:66pt; margin-bottom:14pt; text-align:center; page-break-inside:avoid; page-break-after:avoid } .s29100277 { font-family:Arial; font-weight:bold } .sA36B60A1 { font-family:Arial; font-style:italic } Published on 10 June 2024   THIRD SECTION Application no. 50271/21 Dimitar Lyubenov ATANASOV against Bulgaria lodged on 30 September 2021 communicated on 23 May 2024 SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE The application concerns the authorities’ alleged failure to effectively investigate and bring to justice the perpetrator (a private individual, X) of an attack on the applicant’s physical integrity. It raises issues under Articles 3 and 8 of the Convention. Two separate parallel sets of private criminal proceedings were opened by the courts into reciprocal complaints brought respectively by the applicant and X in relation to a brawl between them on 17 October 2020. They had accused each other of causing minor bodily harm to the other, which is a privately prosecutable offence in domestic law. The proceedings against the applicant ended with a final judgment of 1   April 2021, in which the Plovdiv Regional Court, acting as a final judicial instance, overturned the lower court’s judgment which had acquitted the applicant. The regional court found the applicant guilty and ordered him to pay damages to X. It further absolved the applicant of punishment on the basis that X had retaliated, in turn having caused the applicant the same type of bodily harm. Since in those proceedings X was a private prosecutor, and not an accused, there was no formal examination nor ruling on his guilt. The proceedings brought by the applicant as a private prosecutor against X were discontinued by the Plovdiv Regional Court in a final judgment of 13   July 2021. Specifically, the court found that the principle of ne bis in idem precluded the continuation of those proceedings, since there existed a final judgment (that of 1 April 2021, see above) in respect of same facts complained of. QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES Has there been a violation of the State’s procedural obligations under Articles   3 and/or 8 of the Convention in the present case? In particular, was the termination of the judicial proceedings, which the applicant had brought as a private prosecutor in relation to an attack on his physical integrity, compliant with the State’s duty to effectively investigate and bring to justice perpetrators of violent acts (compare, mutatis mutandis , Sandra Janković v.   Croatia , no. 38478/05, § 58, 5 March 2009; Valiulienė v. Lithuania , no.   33234/07, §§ 85-86, 26 March 2013, and Vučković v. Croatia , no.   15798/20, § 51, 12 December 2023)?