Volume IV, Issue II (April 2006) - Columbus School of Law

declare the party as unconstitutional was in line with Article 22 (2) of IICPR as well as withArticle 11 ( 2) of the ECHR. 320 However, the Chamber Judgment of the European Court forHuman Rights delivered recently, in the case of UMO Ilinden-Pirin v Bulgaria (which shall beanalyzed below in detail), proved the contrary. Interestingly, in the decision on theconstitutionality of the party, the Constitutional Court held that the party was not incompatiblewith Article 11(4) of the Constitution, since it found that there was no Macedonian ethnos inBulgaria, and hence it could not be said the party was based on ethnic origin. 321As regards the right of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, the Bulgarianauthorities have refused to register an association of the Macedonians and conducted a practice ofsweeping bans on its planned meetings. With due regard to all circumstances, this has beenalready found as a violation of the right to peaceful assembly in the case of Stankov and UMOIlinden v Bulgaria in 2001 (discussed in detail below). However, the practice has continued evenafter the judgment by the Strasbourg court, and had resulted in another case against Bulgaria,which also showed a violation of Article 11 of the ECHR (UMO Ilinden and Ivanov v Bulgaria,analyzed below). The Stankov case in conjunction with the Ivanov judgment ( which is not yetfinal) raise another issue under of the European Convention for Human Rights, in view of theobligation of the Contracting Parties to abide by the final judgment in cases to which they areparties.5.2 Implementation of minority rights: identifying positive trends and problemsThe Bulgarian Constitutional Court elaborated that "the existence of a given ethnic, religious andlinguistic minority in the Republic of Bulgaria is not dependent on any state body’s decision, butrequires evidence of objective criteria" 322 How is this applied to the Macedonians, it shall beexplained in more detail, below.In accordance with the census in 2001, in Bulgaria of a total population of 7 928 901, 746664 persons, or 9.4% of the population belongs to the Turkish ethnic group, 370 908 persons, or4, 6 % Roma ethnic group, while all the remaining ethnic groups number of 69 204. 323 The1992 census, showed that 10 803 persons identified themselves Macedonians, and 3109 of themdeclared Macedonian as their mother tongue. 324 However, in the census administered in 1946,according to some sources 252,908 declared themselves as Macedonians. 325 This, variation innumbers, the authorities explain, is a result of activities of the Communist party, which at thetime encouraged the Macedonian identity and pursued a policy of making forced entries in thestatistical data. 326 However, the variation in the numbers of the people who declared asMacedonians can be also analyzed by the changes of the official policy towards the minority.In order to fully comprehend the status of the minority, it has to be noted that Bulgaria claimsthat the Macedonians are of Bulgarian ethnicity. While, there are arguments that for the Greeksthe very name Macedonians (Makedontsi) is a problem, the Bulgarian attitude was to accept the320 Id321 Id322 See Decision 2/1998, supra at 126323 Report submitted by Bulgaria pursuant to Article 25 of the FCNM, available athttp://www.coe.int/T/e/human_rights/Minorities/2._FRAMEWORK_CONVENTION_%28MONITORING%29/2._Monitoring_mechanism/3._State_Reports_and_UNMIK_Kosovo_Report/1._First_cycle/1st_SR_Bulgaria.asp#TopOfPage [hereinafter referred to as Bulgarian Report on the FCNM]324 Id, Bulgarian Report on the FCNM325 See Ortakovski, p.271, supra at 39326 See Bulgarian Report on the FCNM, supra at 13857