Is it possible for a lawyer to have established a foundation with the sole purpose of appealing acts of municipal councils across the country while serving as its sole representative in cases seeking annulment and payment of costs and fees? What is the motive behind this—protecting the rights of a specific category of people or something else?
With several rulings from August 17, the Silistra administrative court suspended several cases that were filed in late 2021 by a non-governmental organization claiming to represent people with disabilities. The “Greenberg” Foundation from Plovdiv challenged several ordinances and regulations from various municipal councils in the region—Silistra, Dulovo, Alfatar, and Tutrakan—that regulate the rights of people with disabilities, seeking their annulment as unlawful. The reason for the requested annulment cited by the foundation in its complaints is that prior to the adoption of these regulatory acts by the municipal councils, the opinion of the Agency for People with Disabilities was not sought, which is an imperative requirement of the law.
However, at the end of July, before the cases were examined in substance, the Silistra administrative court proposed a judicial interpretation to the Supreme Administrative Court due to conflicting practices, where on one hand, the Supreme Administrative Court accepted that the foundation has legitimacy to pursue these cases, while on the other hand, it stated that it lacks legal interest and the right to challenge these regulatory acts. The proposal was deemed valid and a interpretative case No. 4 of 2022 was initiated. As the decision from the Assembly of Judges of the First and Second Chambers of the Supreme Administrative Court is awaited regarding the interpretative ruling, the cases in Silistra have been suspended.
What is the “Greenberg” Foundation?
It was registered in early 2020 as a non-profit legal entity for private benefit, based in Plovdiv, under Article 12 of the Additional Provisions of the Law on People with Disabilities, which defines that “Organizations for People with Disabilities” are organizations created to provide services to and for people with disabilities and that take on an advocacy role on behalf of individuals with disabilities.
The foundation is known for having filed lawsuits against municipal councils across the country in a similar manner and with the same request since its establishment. These lawsuits target ordinances that regulate the rights of individuals with disabilities, which were adopted years ago—specifically regarding the use of parking permits and parking spaces for their vehicles. In many of these cases, the corresponding administrative courts have ruled on the merits and annulled the ordinances, accepting that the foundation has the right to file such lawsuits and that the request is valid.
The model of contestation is similar everywhere—complaints are filed through an authorized lawyer (who turns out to be the same one), and the costs requested by the lawyer in the complaint amount to 600-700 leva, with 600 leva typically being the lawyer’s fee (500 leva is the minimum lawyer’s remuneration). This raises the question of whether this is not a scheme to earn money drawn from municipal budgets, rather than an actual activity aimed at protecting the rights of individuals with disabilities. Moreover, the basis on which the annulment of the respective acts is requested is quite formal—non-compliance by municipal councils with the legal requirement to seek the opinion of the Agency for People with Disabilities—but it is sufficiently adequate for filing a lawsuit.
The foundation has contested two regulatory acts of the Silistra Municipal Council related to people with disabilities. These are the Ordinance on Traffic Organization within the Municipality of Silistra concerning preferential parking for people with disabilities and the Regulations for the Organization and Activities of Clubs for the Disabled and Pensioners in Silistra Municipality. Both acts were challenged at the end of 2021 on the grounds that the opinion of the Agency for People with Disabilities had not been sought when they were adopted by the municipal council more than 10 years ago.
In this regard, at a meeting with journalists at the end of 2021, the chair of the Silistra Municipal Council, Maria Dimitrova, complained that “the mentioned foundations have turned it into a business, hiring law firms to conduct the lawsuits.”
The suspicion is for abuse of procedural rights—specifically, the concern is that lawsuits are being filed to claim costs, rather than to substantively protect the rights of individuals with disabilities. This abuse could be established by the court, especially if there is a request from the defendant—the municipal council—for these costs not to be paid, but it must be proven. However, so far, in the cases won by the foundation, the courts have ordered the payment of the claimed costs. In this case, the costs are paid from the budget of the respective municipality.
Some administrative courts refuse to initiate a case on the grounds that the foundation lacks the legitimacy to pursue it, and accordingly, the complaint is deemed inadmissible. In this situation, the foundation appeals the refusal to the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) with a private complaint. Judicial practice on this matter is conflicting, which is why the Silistra administrative court has referred the case to the SAC, leading to the initiation of an interpretative case. The question that the Supreme Judges must resolve is whether non-profit legal entities registered as organizations for and on behalf of people with disabilities, which operate for private benefit (in this case, “Greenberg”), have legal interest in challenging subordinate normative acts affecting people with disabilities who are not members of those organizations and with whom the organizations do not have a social service “advocacy” contract.
The answer to this question will determine the further course of the cases in Silistra, as well as provide mandatory interpretation in resolving the issue of the organization’s legitimacy to contest these acts. In principle, the oversight of the legality of the normative acts of the municipal council is conducted by the prosecution.
Who is behind the foundation?
The foundation does not have a website or a Facebook page, nor does it conduct any information campaign about its activities or organized events. However, when we called the phone number listed in the Register of Non-Profit Legal Entities, a person answered who identified himself as lawyer Ivan G. Yordanov, registered with the Pazardzhik Bar Association. He stated that he is the procedural representative for the cases the foundation is pursuing against municipal councils, including in Silistra. He is the sole lawyer and procedural representative for all these filed cases.
We inquired about the goals the foundation is pursuing and whether the ongoing lawsuits aim for profit—specifically the payment of legal fees. He stated that the foundation has recorded its purpose in the founding documents as the challenge of normative acts by the municipal councils, as well as judicial advocacy for people with disabilities. According to him, the disputes before the Silistra court also do not aim to profit from the expenses. “The cases are being pursued to compel municipal councils to fulfill their obligations competently and legally,” he stated.
In the conversation, he clarified that the foundation is based at his law office, located at 53 Rayko Daskalov Street, 1st floor, office 1, in Plovdiv, which also serves as the legal address for receiving notifications related to the cases. The contact email address listed in the Register of Non-Profit Legal Entities belongs to the profile of the lawyer on the Pazardzhik Bar Association’s website.
Generally, the manager of a foundation is responsible for its activities, not the procedural representative in the cases. Since a 33-year-old man named Georgi I. Yordanov is listed as the founder and manager of the foundation in the registers of non-profit legal entities (with the surname matching that of lawyer Yordanov), we asked whether he is the lawyer’s son. Because in this case, it turns out that the manager—his son—empowers the lawyer-father to conduct the lawsuits, while the lawyer-representative requests in the complaints for the expenses to be paid for the client represented by the son. He refused to answer the question and stated that he would not comment, asserting that the fact of whether they are related to the manager is irrelevant to the case.
However, it may turn out that
behind the foundation’s activities stands a single individual
— lawyer Ivan G. Yordanov from Plovdiv, who primarily engages through the foundation in disputing the acts of municipal councils related to the rights of people with disabilities. He claims that he does not do this to abuse rights and profit from fees, but it is evident that he creates significant work both for himself and for the judicial system. So far, he has been successful, as a large portion of the cases have been decided in favor of the foundation, leading to the annulment of the ordinances.
Regarding the case in Silistra, lawyer Yordanov believes that the administrative court acted incorrectly by establishing the Agency for People with Disabilities as an interested party in the case against the Silistra Municipal Council. This allows the agency to participate in the process and provide opinions on the case. Indeed, there is such an order from the court, granting the agency the opportunity to participate in the case. However, this raises another question: why would a lawyer, who is pursuing a case on the grounds that the agency’s opinion was not sought prior to the adoption of the normative act by the municipal council, be opposed to its participation in the process and providing opinions on the matter? This once again raises the question of the motive behind his actions—whether it is to protect the rights of a specific group of people or something else.
Meanwhile, in Silistra, the decision of the Supreme Administrative Court is awaited regarding interpretative case No. 4 of 2022, which, according to a statement from the Silistra court, aims to resolve definitively the question of which organizations can file lawsuits against the ordinances and regulations affecting the rights of people with disabilities.
