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.” 14

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