5.  The applicant was born in 1939 and lives in Sofia.
6.  The applicant owns one half of a plot of land in the village of Golyamo Buchino, close to the city of Pernik. He also owned one half of a house standing on the plot, in which he lived until 1997, and one half of two smaller buildings, a barn and a pen. Those buildings no longer exist.
7.  On an unspecified date towards the end of the 1980s or the beginning of the 1990s the State took a decision to create an opencast coalmine near the village. In a decision of 8 May 1990 the local mayor expropriated about ninety properties in the area for that purpose, including the applicant’s land and buildings.
8.  The expropriation decision stated that the applicant should receive in compensation another plot of land in the village. The applicant received additionally a sum of money (the parties have not presented the decision of the mayor on the additional compensation). The majority of the remaining owners received either monetary compensation or flats in the city of Pernik. As another plot was not provided to the applicant within the statutory time‑limit of one year, on 21 August 1992 he requested that the expropriation be cancelled, as he was entitled to under section 102 of the Property Act (see paragraph 24 below). Another person who was due a plot of land in compensation also applied to have the expropriation of her property cancelled. In a decision of 2 October 1992 the Pernik regional governor cancelled the two expropriations, noting that the plots of land due in compensation had not been provided “owing to the impossibility for the municipality to ensure such plots”. The decision stated furthermore that the owners had to pay back the monetary compensation they had additionally received. On 22 December 1993 the applicant paid back that compensation.
9.  The applicant remained in his house. In the years which followed the mine approached the house, due to its gradual enlargement. Coal was extracted from it by means of detonations, which, according to the applicant, shook the house on a daily basis. On unspecified dates cracks appeared on the walls of the house, and the barn and the pen collapsed. Towards the beginning of 1997 the applicant’s family moved out of the house, judging it too dangerous to stay.
10.  Subsequently, the applicant contacted the mine, seeking to obtain compensation, but the negotiations failed. At the time, the mine was managed by a company which was wholly State-owned. In 2005 it was privatised.
11.  In 2001 the applicant brought a tort action against the company operating the mine, seeking compensation for the damage caused to his property.
12.  The Pernik Regional Court (“the Regional Court”), which examined the case at first instance, heard a witness, a neighbour of the applicant, who stated during a court hearing of 13 December 2001 that the walls of the applicant’s house were cracked, that its state continued to deteriorate, and that the barn had collapsed three or four years earlier. He thought that the house had been well constructed, and explained that after the initial damage the applicant had attempted to repair it. On 7 March 2002 the Regional Court heard another witness, who stated that most of the damage to the applicant’s house had been caused three or four years earlier.
13.  The Regional Court appointed an expert, who established that the house had been constructed between 1948 and 1950, when there had been no requirements as to seismic resistance. At the time of drawing up the expert report the house was uninhabitable, as its walls were bent and cracked, with the cracks sometimes reaching 20-35 cm in width. The distance between the house and the mine’s periphery was about 160‑180 metres. This meant that the house was situated well inside the so‑called “sanitation zone” consisting of land within 500 metres of the mine’s edge, inside which the law prohibited any dwellings. The “security zone” for the mine, within which no unauthorised person was to be present during detonation works, had a radius of 600 metres. The expert confirmed his conclusions at a court meeting on 24 January 2002.
14.  In a judgment of 27 June 2003 the Regional Court dismissed the applicant’s action. It considered it established that the applicant’s property had been seriously damaged and that the damage had coincided in time with the beginning of detonation works in the mine. Still, it concluded that the applicant had not proven that a causal link existed between the damage and the detonations. He had relied in that regard on the witness testimony provided by two neighbours, but according to the Regional Court it was impossible to establish what had caused the damage to the property by way of witness testimony. The burden of proof to establish such a circumstance lay on the applicant and the other party had argued that the damage had been due to the manner of construction of his house.
15.  The applicant lodged an appeal. Before the Sofia Court of Appeal (“the Court of Appeal”) he called an additional witness, who stated during a hearing on 2 February 2004 that many houses in the area had already collapsed, and that all the other houses in the applicant’s neighbourhood had cracks.
16.  On 25 June 2004 the Court of Appeal upheld the Regional Court’s judgment, confirming its reasoning. It held that while witness testimony could establish the extent and the timing of the damage to the applicant’s property, it could not prove the causal link between that damage and the detonation works at the mine.
17.  The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law. In a judgment of 5 April 2006 the Supreme Court of Cassation quashed the Court of Appeal’s judgment and remitted the case for fresh examination. It was of the view that the lower courts had not duly accounted for the fact that the mine operated in a prohibited area close to the applicant’s house, the house being situated within both the “sanitation zone” and the “security zone” around the mine. The lower courts had had to examine this fact in light of the statements of the witnesses, which had “established the circumstance” that the damage to the applicant’s property had been the result of the detonation works. It was also necessary to assess compliance by the company operating the mine with other statutory requirements, such as those concerning environmental protection.
18.  After the case was remitted, the Court of Appeal commissioned a new expert report. The expert noted that, owing to the passage of time and the destruction of some documents, it was impossible to determine the exact distance between the applicant’s house and the area where the detonations had been carried out in 1997. Nevertheless, it was clear that the house had been well inside the “sanitation zone” around the mine. The expert additionally noted that the detonations had been carried out by qualified workers, in accordance with the mine’s internal rules.
19.  The Court of Appeal heard an additional witness for the applicant, who stated during a court hearing of 23 November 2006 that many houses in the village had collapsed, and that he thought that this was due to the detonations at the mine. He added that the detonations took place on a daily basis, that they caused “earthquakes”, and that the houses shattered as a result. The first cracks on the applicant’s house had appeared even before the time when the mine had operated closest to it. The witness was not aware of any landslides in the area.
20.  In a judgment of 2 April 2007 the Court of Appeal once again upheld the Regional Court’s judgment of 27 June 2003, dismissing the applicant’s claim. It found it “indisputable” that employees of the mine had acted in breach of law, by carrying out detonations in a prohibited area close to residential buildings, including at the time when, according to the applicant, the damage to his property had started. Nevertheless, on the basis of the material submitted, the applicant had not proved the causal link between the mine’s work and the damage to his property. The Court of Appeal reasoned in that regard:
“The causal link ... cannot be assumed – it is to be fully proven by the claimant. It has not been shown in the case that the claimant’s building, constructed in the 1950s, has been damaged precisely because of the detonation works at the mine. The claimant has not shown that the residential building and the auxiliary buildings, given [their] manner of construction, the materials [used] and the time of [their] construction, would not have been damaged, or would not have been damaged to such an extent, had it not been for the detonation works at the mine. It has not been shown whether and to what degree the buildings’ state described by the expert [heard by the Regional Court] was due to normal wear and tear, taking into account the year [they were built] and the manner of [their] construction, and any lack of maintenance by the owner after the 1990 expropriation.”
21.  Upon a further appeal by the applicant, in a final judgment of 3 July 2008 the Supreme Court of Cassation upheld the Court of Appeal’s judgment, affirming its conclusions. It pointed out in particular that the expert report presented to the Court of Appeal (see paragraph 18 above) had only established that the applicant’s property had been situated within the “sanitation zone” around the mine, but “was insufficient to prove the existence of a causal link between the damage ... and the unlawful behaviour of employees of the respondent company”.
22.  In the meantime, the applicant’s house has collapsed and no longer exists. The property has been abandoned.