Bulgaria Violated Rights of Roma Families by Demolishing Settlement, Court Rules

Demolition of Roma houses in Stara Zagora in Bulgaria, August 2025. Photo: Anastas Tarpanov. Bulgaria breached the human rights of dozens of Roma families in Sofia by demolishing their homes without giving them a chance to contest the decision, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday. The government must pay 10,000 euro in damages to each party to the case and reform its demolition procedures. The demolition took place in Sofia’s Orlandovtsi neighbourhood in August 2023, despite residents insisting that the authorities had not consulted them over the plans. Some of the families said they had lived in their homes since the 1950s. The authorities insisted that they had carried out a formal process for issuing demolition orders. This was denied by the residents, who said the authorities deliberately concealed their intentions, gave evasive answers to repeated requests for information and refused to engage directly with the community. The court ruled that Bulgaria had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects family life and homes. It found that residents had no effective procedure to challenge the plans for demolition based on their personal circumstances, including length of residence, vulnerability and the availability of alternative housing. The court also ruled, however, that the residents held no property rights in the demolished houses that would be recognized under Bulgarian law. The ruling is not yet final and Bulgaria has three months to request that the case be referred for further review. The residents may make a similar application. The flattening of Roma settlements in Bulgaria has become a repeated problem and a source of tension between the ethnic minority and local authorities. Demolitions also took place in the Orlandovtsi neighbourhood in 2017. The ECHR has now heard four cases involving Roma settlement demolitions since 2012. In 2025, BIRN covered two similar cases: in April 2025, despite an ECHR ruling warning the municipality not to “proceed with the demolition of the homes of the applicants until further notice”, authorities still flattened houses in the enclave which had been there for decades. A similar operation followed in the town of Stara Zagora in August the same year.