INTRODUCTION

Historically, property law has been one of the most heavily politicised and ideologised branches of Bulgarian law. The history of property law reflects most clearly the severe damage which communism inflicted on Bulgarian society. In contrast to other branches of private law, which were reformed after the fall of the Berlin Wall without causing pain to ordinary citizens, the reform of property law not only required the re-invention of the discipline, which had largely been deprived of its purpose as understood in the Western world, but also resulted in emotional turmoil and disputes which left many scars. Even more worrisome is the fact that 30 years after the end of communism, Bulgaria seems to be returning to some communist practices which had previously been denounced.

THE DRASTIC TRANSFORMATIONS OF THE RIGHT TO PRIVATE PROPERTY

The right to private property in Bulgaria has undergone dramatic transformations. This phenomenon only proves how ephemeral the right to private property is in the Bulgarian realm. This section explores the nature and role of this right during the three main periods of historical development discussed in Chapter 2.

UNCONDITIONAL RIGHT TO PRIVATE PROPERTY (1878–1944)

Ownership was of pivotal importance in the first Bulgarian Turnovo Constitution of 1879, which was adopted a year after the Liberation. Article 67 of this Constitution specified: ‘Rights to property are inviolable ’. Moreover, its Article 68 stipulated:

Article 75(2) of the Turnovo Constitution forbade the confiscation of property, even in the realm of criminal law. This article was part of a section in the Constitution dedicated to the ‘Inviolability of the Person, Property and Correspondence’, which further indicates how important this right was in the Bulgarian legal mindset at the time.

The young Bulgarian State radically departed from the conception of property embraced by the Ottoman Empire. In the Ottoman Empire, peasants only had rights to the usufruct, because agricultural land belonged to the empire.