News

30 December 2024

In 2024, the Ombudsman received over 12,500 complaints from citizens and organizations to report about violations of rights. Thus, the high trust in the human rights institution continues to be as high as in previous years.

Traditionally, the greatest number of complaints pertain to the Consumer Rights sector: over 4,700 where more than half of them report problems in the electricity supply and the water and sewerage sector, most often related to power and water cuts or non-supply of water at all, or the disproportionately high water tariff at the expense of quality. With regard to this in November 2024, the Ombudsman Institution objected strongly to the 3.87% increase on average from 1 January 2025. The experts of the Institution insist that this is unfair, given the water supply dramatic situation in 23 regions in Bulgaria. On 6 December 2024, an opinion on a new water and sewerage bill was sent where the Ombudsman Institution again insists on a fast and clear procedure to obtain a lower price of water when it fails to meet the regulatory requirements of quality. In addition, there are proposals to introduce measures to support the most vulnerable groups of citizens, to ensure efficient control on the operations of water supply and sewerage operators and to determine the social tolerability of the water and sewerage prices in line with the households’ income. It is up to the Members of Parliament to accept or reject the National Ombudsman’s proposals when the bill is submitted to the National Assembly to be railroaded through the Legislature.

The number of complaints against banks and especially against companies for quick loans is likewise serious – over 350, and most often they relate to high service fees, excessive interest rates and unfair clauses. The amount of the debt becomes between twofold and threefold higher than the loan pending the signature of the contract by the consumer. An analysis of the problem by the Ombudsman Institution’s experts shows that unfair clauses in contracts that are taken to court are declared null and void and are cancelled, however legal action is not taken against every contract. The quick loans problem is not an isolated and a standalone case. It is related to the problem with the debt collection companies and must be considered in a package with the Natural Persons Bankruptcy Act, the so-called eternal debtor act. This Act is about to be voted after it was submitted to Parliament by the Council of Ministers a month ago.

Among the problems that received a legal solution in 2024, after many years when the National Ombudsman was campaigning for, are the complaints of citizens (over 240,000 citizens, according to expert assessments), regarding existing restriction on registrations of a permanent and residential address. The Ombudsman has repeatedly brought the problem to the attention of the competent institutions, the National Assembly included, and insisted on a discussion of the options and on finding a solution, including, if necessary, legislative amendments. Such amendments were approved by the 50^th National Assembly in October 2024 and the Civil Registration Act provided for an option for a registration at a service address.

Social rights, social security and benefits, labor rights, the right to healthcare, the right to education continue to be among the priority cases brought to the attention of the Ombudsman’s experts in 2024, with complaints about the above matters exceeding 2,800 within a year. Questions are often raised about the amount of the minimum pension (BGN 523.04 until 1 July 2024 and BGN 580.57 after this date), which although exceeding the poverty line set for the country (from 1 January 2024 – BGN 526), fails to bridge the inflation and to give a breath of fresh air to pensioners to meet their daily needs.

The percentage of complaints, requests and reports filed by industrial or office workers about non-payment of wages and benefits is relatively high. After the intervention of the Ombudsman and upon an initiative of the Ombudsman, an inspection was carried out by the control bodies of the Labor Inspectorate and following relevant coercive administrative measures, the employer’s payment to the workers was effected.

This year again, health rights continue to be a problem and a focus in the activities of the national human rights protector – citizens complain about difficult access to primary outpatient medical services in small, remote and hard-to-reach populated areas that are not visited by a general practitioner; difficult recourse to emergency medical care, including cases of delay; difficult access to medical devices and aid for people with rare diseases.

Regrettably, despite the changes made in the regulatory framework, the number of complaints about violations of rights of people with disabilities remains traditionally high – over 800 for the whole year, 2024. The core of complaints concerns problems of the medical assessment of people with disabilities and the significant delays in the appointment of dates for examination/re-examination and in issuing the decisions of the Territorial Medical Examination Boards (TMEBs) and the National Medical Examination Board (NMEB). Problems related to the accessibility of the environment to people with disabilities and to the conditions to open and use social services continue.

The number of complaints and reports from citizens to the Ombudsman about the right to protect property in its various aspects is likewise serious; over 1,400 such complaints were filed in 2024. Typically, these are complaints filed by a great number of citizens with signatures appended to ask the Ombudsman Institution to intervene to protect the right to property. The Ombudsman was approached by a large number of citizens organized in initiative committees to protest against breaches of the environment legislation in investment intentions for the extraction of underground resources, against the seizure of farmland and pastures to install power-generating facilities, against hazardous production facilities in the proximity of populated areas.

During the inspections on specific cases, the Ombudsman found, in addition to insufficient guarantees for the exercise of the right to property, toleration, in a number of cases, disregard for existing good practices. The analysis of the breaches found again shows a number of recurrent problems in administrative regulation and standards of services in specific sectors. The main groups of complaints that citizens bring to the Ombudsman are: development plans and the changes thereto; unsanctioned construction work; investment planning and assessments to conform to environmental legislation; infringed rights in the drawing and maintenance of cadastral maps and cadastral registers; compulsory purchase and compensation procedures, infringements on the right to ownership of farmland and forests, etc.

With regard to the rights of the child, in 2024, the Ombudsman Institution received over 550 complaints about the family milieu and protection measures, children and the Judiciary, defense against violence, the right to education of children with special educational needs, children with disabilities, etc. A specific aspect of the complaints involving children is that each complaint is strictly individual and most often is filed by the child’s parents, concerning the environment in which the child is brought up, the school, the kindergarten, relations within the family – parental disagreements, etc.

In 2024, again the Ombudsman’s activities as a National Preventive Mechanism focused on the improvement of the conditions in the places of custody. Thirty-two inspections were conducted and over 660 complaints about violations of fundamental rights and freedoms were sent to the Ombudsman Institution in the past year. Specific focus during the year was placed again on the conditions in state psychiatric hospitals as a reaction on an incident where a patient died. Since 2014, the Ombudsman Institution has been expressing alarm in its annual reports in the capacity of a National Preventive Mechanism about the problems of financing state-run psychiatric service and of adherence to medical standards. The competent institutions continue to owe a lasting solution to be found to the serious problems arising from poor facilities and staffing in psychiatry. The Ombudsman Institution has invariably warned that these problems directly affect and violate the rights of both patients placed in these hospitals and the staff there.

The percentage of complaints where citizens brought forward problems concerning enforcement proceedings (212) or approached the Ombudsman Institution with a request that it should propose amendments to the existing legislation (97) or asked the Ombudsman to take the matter to the Constitutional Court (51) continues to be high. Although the Ombudsman is not one of the authorities that have control powers over bailiffs, the number of complaints and reports submitted indicates that citizens have confidence and expect positive intervention in the protection of their rights as debtors and in many cases as executor creditors.