ANATOLIY MARINOV v. BULGARIA JUDGMENT
assess the proportionality of the restriction as it stands (see, mutatis mutandis
and in relation to the Hungarian legislature, Alajos Kiss, cited above, § 41)
and thus open the way for the courts to conduct a particular analysis of the
capacity of the applicant to exercise the right to vote, independently of a
decision to place a person under a guardianship. It has been noted above that
the Government has failed to prove that domestic judicial practice allows for
the possibility of lifting the restriction on a person’s right to vote in cases
where that person remains deprived of his or her legal capacity. It moreover
appears that such possibility would not be in line with the domestic legal
framework (see paragraph 27 above).
56. The applicant in the present case lost his right to vote as the result of
the imposition of an automatic, blanket restriction on the franchise of those
under partial guardianship (with no option for an individualised judicial
evaluation of his fitness to vote); this placed him in a situation similar to that
of the applicant in the case of Alajos Kiss (cited above, and contrast, Strøbye
and Rosenlind, §§ 113 and 120, and Caamaño Valle, § 71, both cited above,
where the Court noted that there had been no blanket restriction of the right
of suffrage and individualised judicial review had taken place). The applicant
may therefore claim to be a victim of a measure incompatible with the
relevant established principles (see, in particular, paragraph 49 above). The
Court cannot speculate as to whether the applicant would still have been
deprived of the right to vote, even if a more limited restriction on the rights
of the mentally disabled had – in compliance with the requirements of
Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 – been imposed (see Alajos Kiss, cited above,
§ 43).
57. The Court reiterates that the treatment as a single class of all those
with intellectual or psychiatric disabilities is a questionable classification, and
the curtailment of their rights must be subject to strict scrutiny (ibid., § 44).
The Court therefore concludes that the indiscriminate removal of the voting
rights of the applicant – without an individualised judicial review and solely
on the basis of the fact that his mental disability necessitated that he be placed
under partial guardianship – cannot be considered to be proportionate to the
legitimate aim for restricting the right to vote, as advanced by the Government
(see paragraph 52 above).
58. There has accordingly been a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1
to the Convention.
II. APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION
59. Article 41 of the Convention provides:
“If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols
thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only
partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to the
injured party.”
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