Effect given to the recommendations of the committee and the Governing Body - Report No 311, November 1998

Case No 1957 (Bulgaria) - Complaint date: 12-MAR-98 - Closed

Effect given to the recommendations of the Committee and the Governing Body

1. 25. At its meeting of June 1998, when it examined allegations relating to eviction from trade union premises occupied by a trade union organization and the confiscation of the union's property, the Committee, considering that the complainant organization had been deprived of the use of premises which it had used from 1992 to 1997, invited the Government to consider the possibility, taking into account the representativeness of the National Syndical Federation (GMH), of granting the complainant premises in the city of Sofia in which it might set up its headquarters, and requested the Government to take the necessary steps without delay to ensure that all the equipment and documents confiscated from the complainant organization were returned to it (See 310th Report, para. 133(a) and (b)).
2. 26. In its communication of 30 June 1998, the Government states that: (1) in order to allow the Ministry of Economics to use the premises occupied by the trade union organization GMH, in accordance with the legal authorization obtained by the Ministry to take over the premises in question, the office equipment and documents belonging to the GMH were moved and the premises where they were stored were sealed to ensure their safe keeping, not to prevent the complainant from using the equipment and documents in question; and (2) the GMH legally occupied the premises in question only during the period 1992-93, their occupation of the premises between 1994 and 1997 having been illegal; the GMH may, through the procedure established by the Cabinet in implementation of the State Property Law, ask for other premises to be allocated to it.
3. 27. The Committee takes note of this information. With regard to the confiscation of material, equipment and documents belonging to the GMH, the Committee notes that the Government does not state whether these have been returned to the complainant. Under these circumstances, the Committee once again draws the Government's attention to the fact that confiscation of trade union property by the authorities without a court order constitutes an infringement of the right of trade unions to own property and undue interference in their activities, contrary to the principles of freedom of association; the Committee requests the Government, if it has not already done so, to take steps without delay to ensure that all the property confiscated from the complainant organization is returned to it. With regard to the possibility of allocating premises to the GMH, the Committee invites the complainant organization to request that premises be allocated to it under the terms of the State Property Law, as the Government has suggested.