The personal accounts of Venelina Popova, a journalist with Za Istinata (For the Truth), have been frozen and her personal property has been seized by a bailiff after she lost a case concerning refusal of access to public information.
Venelina Popova sent a request to the mayor of Galabovo, Nikolay Tonev, under the Access to Public Information Act, asking about the parameters of a €360 million project to build an incinerator using RDF fuel (recycled waste).
Due to the significant public interest and the uncertainty surrounding who the private investor in the project is, Popova asked questions mainly related to the investment intention, on the basis of which changes to the Detailed Development Plan of Galabovo were adopted in 2024.
The Administrative Court in Stara Zagora terminated the proceedings because the mayor claimed that he had responded to the request within the time limit provided for by law, stating in his response that the requested information was not available in his administration. However, Popova denies having received a response to her request and appeals the decision before the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC).
The panel of judges of the Supreme Administrative Court referred the case back for reconsideration, stating in its reasoning that the dispute over the existence of a possible tacit refusal and the completeness of the information provided was a matter of substance that needed to be clarified.
The Supreme Court judges criticise the lack of reasoning in the first instance court’s decision and note that the claim that the requested information is not stored by the municipality constitutes, in essence, a refusal, the legality of which must be verified.
Despite the clear instructions from the Supreme Administrative Court, on July 23 this year, Judge Zlatko Maznikov again rejected Venelina Popova’s appeal and ordered her to pay BGN 1,000 to compensate for the legal costs incurred by the municipal administration in Galabovo. This decision is final.
“I received a request from Gergana Ilcheva, a private bailiff at the District Court in Stara Zagora, to pay BGN 1,000 to the municipality of Galabovo,” Popova said. The future waste incineration plant in Galabovo is to be built in one of the most polluted places in Europe,” Popova explains.
However, Judge Ilcheva ruled that Venelina Popova must pay, in addition to BGN 1,000 in court costs to the mayor’s office in Galabovo, a further BGN 968 in additional expenses related to the enforcement proceedings she herself is conducting. This amount includes VAT and “other amounts due to date totaling BGN 400, including stamp duty, attorney’s fees for the expert witness, for the guard, etc.,” according to the letter she sent to Venelina Popova.
Thus, the total amount owed by Popova as of August 27 is BGN 1,968.75.
In the letter, the private bailiff informs the journalist that she has imposed a seizure on all her cash income and accounts, setting a date and time—September 29 at 11 a.m.—for an inventory of the movable property in her home.
Of course, all court decisions are “in the name of the people,” writes Venelina Popova in a post on social media.
“They will not intimidate me, nor will they stop me from exposing their dirty laundry,” she writes. As a journalist, my only goal has been to investigate abuses of power, money, and influence, to expose the truth about corrupt, at least at first glance, deals and decisions by the authorities, and to inform citizens about things that are negotiated and happen behind the scenes.”
Association of European Journalists (AEJ) – Bulgaria and the Access to Information Program expressed their bewilderment at the decision of the Administrative Court in Stara Zagora, which rejected journalist Venelina Popova’s appeal against the refusal to grant her access to public information and ordered her to pay the costs of the proceedings.
The AEJ is prepared to cover the full amount of the awarded costs from its legal aid fund for journalists.
You can make a donation to this fund by following this link.
