5.  The applicant was born in 1959 and lives in Štip.
6.  On 21 September 2012 a vacancy notice was published in respect of five posts on the State Judicial Council (“the SJC”) to be filled by sitting judges elected from among their peers. Ethnicity was not among the stated requirements for the posts (see paragraph 20 below).
7.  On 28 September 2012 the applicant lodged a request with the Ministry of Justice for his ethnicity entry in the electoral roll to be changed from that of Bulgarian to Macedonian.
8.  On 15 October 2012 the electoral roll was made available to the Štip Court of Appeal for inspection. Since the applicant’s ethnic designation had not been changed, on the same date he lodged a fresh request for it to be rectified (from Bulgarian to Macedonian), relying on section 17 of the State Judicial Act (“the Act”) (see paragraph 23 below).
9.  By a decision of 18 October 2012, the Ministry of Justice refused the applicant’s request. The relevant parts of the decision read as follows:
“... [the applicant’s] requests for a change to the details [recorded] in the electoral roll regarding ‘ethnicity’ were submitted after the announcement had been published of an election of [new] members to [the SJC]. The requested change cannot be made because it [was intended to secure] the attainment of a(n) [electoral] right concerning the election of members of [the SJC]. A change of ethnicity entry [sought exclusively for the attainment of another right] after the announcement for the election of members of the SJC [would put other judges] ... , in a disadvantageous position ...”
10.  The applicant lodged an appeal with the Administrative Court challenging that decision and arguing that the Ministry’s decision had not been based on any statutory grounds. In particular there had been no provision preventing him from changing his ethnicity entry in the electoral roll while the election of members to the SJC had been ongoing. He furthermore submitted that it had been his personal right to determine his own ethnicity and that the Ministry had had no grounds for disregarding his chosen affiliation in this regard. The conclusion that his request would have put other judges in a disadvantageous position had been unreasonable and unsubstantiated.
11.  On 25 October 2012 the Ministry submitted its observations in reply, to which it appended, inter alia, extracts from the electoral rolls of 2006, 2008 and 2010.
12.  On 26 October 2012 the Administrative Court upheld the Ministry’s decision and the reasons that the Ministry had given. It furthermore added that:
“... the request (lodged after the publication of the [election] announcement) for a change to the ethnicity entry was aimed exclusively at the attainment of another [electoral] right that would have put other judges (who had attained their right related to the election of [new] members to [the SJC]), in a disadvantageous position. [The applicant’s] request for the rectification post-dated the announcement of the election of [new] members to [the SJC]. The requested change cannot be regarded as a ‘rectification’ since it does not concern a change to numbers, names or other obvious errors, but rather concerns a detail [concerning his ethnicity] that [the applicant] provided. He enjoyed rights as [an individual] of Bulgarian ethnicity concerning the election of members to [the SJC]. That was established on the basis of extracts from the electoral rolls of October 2006, December 2008 and July 2010 submitted together with the observations in reply to [the applicant’s] claim. In these three electoral rolls [the applicant was] declared [to be] Bulgarian. This means that there has been no violation of his right to declare his own ethnicity.”
13.  The applicant appealed against this decision, contesting as unreasonable the finding that his request had aimed at enabling him to attain rights related to the election of new members to the SJC and that the requested change would have put other judges involved in that election in a disadvantageous position. It was unclear how and by what means those judges would have been put in such a position, or indeed which judges would have been affected. Such findings had no legal basis. Furthermore, he contested as irrelevant the findings that his requests had been lodged after the publication of the announcement. He also reiterated his arguments that declaring his own ethnic identity was his personal right. In that connection it was irrelevant which ethnicity had been ascribed to him in 2006, 2008 and 2010 and what electoral rights he had attempted to attain in the past as a Bulgarian. Lastly, he had not been given the opportunity to comment on the electoral rolls of 2006, 2008 and 2010, which the Ministry of Justice had submitted in evidence and to which the Administrative Court had referred in its decision establishing his ethnic identity as Bulgarian.
14.  On 2 November 2012 the Ministry’s observations in reply were communicated to the applicant.
15.  On 5 November 2012 the Higher Administrative Court dismissed the applicant’s appeal. The judgment, in which the court cited the wording of provisions of the Act and the General Administrative Procedure Act (see paragraphs 19, 23 and 24 below), stated, inter alia, that:
“... [the applicant requested] the modification of his ethnicity entry in the electoral roll after the [publication of] the announcement of the election of [new] members to the SJC, in which he ... participates. Such a modification of the national ethnicity after the publication of the announcement related to another right would leave other judges who attain the right related to election of members to the SJC in a disadvantageous position. [The applicant], as a Bulgarian, enjoyed rights related to the election of members to the SJC [given the fact that] he had declared himself in the electoral rolls of [2006, 2008 and 2010] as Bulgarian ...
... [The Ministry’s] decision is based on the State Judicial Council Act and the General Administrative Procedure Act ...
... [T]he court examined and rejected as ill-founded [the applicant’s] allegations that the impugned decision had restricted his right to assert his own ethnic identity. In the present case, [the applicant] requested a rectification – that is to say the modification of his ethnicity entry in the electoral roll. [The Ministry’s] refusal [to do so] cannot be regarded as a restriction on his right to assert his ethnic identity, given that the modification in question was sought after the announcement of the election of [new] members to the SJC had been published.”
16.  On 5 October 2012 the applicant submitted himself for election as a member of the SJC. On an unspecified date, he submitted a written statement affirming that he was of Macedonian ethnicity and that his application for election to the SJC had been made with regard to the general list of judges of the courts within the territorial jurisdiction of the Štip Court of Appeal (see paragraph 21 below).
17.  By a letter of 3 December 2012, the SJC informed the applicant that it had struck his name out of the general list of candidates for election to the SJC to be selected from judges of the courts within the territorial jurisdiction of the Štip Court of Appeal. It had decided to do so in the light of the fact that his declared ethnicity (Macedonian) had not corresponded with the official records, according to which since 1995 he had been registered as being of Bulgarian ethnicity. It also acknowledged the outcome of the “rectification proceedings” described above. The SJC furthermore stated that it was not required under the Act to take any decision related to entries in the electoral roll. Section 17 of the Act specified the procedural rules and the relevant body in respect of their rectification.