Bulgarians to Unite against Interior for ID Documents Chaos

All Bulgarian citizens who have submitted requests for new identity documents and are above 14 years fo age could join the collective claim by the Association "Justice Civil Initiative"at the Sofia City Court against the Interior Ministry. Photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian Association “Justice Civil Initiative” will bring a collective civil action against the Interior Ministry for the problems with the issuing of the new identity documents.

The Head of the Association, Ivan Gruikin, announced Friday that they want the Sofia City Court to rule that for the period January 1-August 26, the Interior Ministry unlawfully violated the deadlines and the normal organization and order for the issuing of the new identity documents.

The civil action will also point out that the Ministry should pay BGN 1000 as a partial compensation from the total requested amount of BGN 50 M for causing non-pecuniary damages to the people who have submitted requests for new documents.

“All the citizens who have submitted requests and are above 14 years of age could join the collective civil action. If it is respected and if more people join, the amount of the compensation will be increased,” Gruikin said.

In its claim, the association will ask the court to obligate the Ministry to guarantee a better organization of its work in order to prevent the “chaos” surrounding the issuing of new documents.

Gruikin has explained that one of the reasons behind the collective claim has been the fact that neither the Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov, nor the Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov have taken responsibility for the problem.

“Excuses with factors outside of the system of the Interior Ministry, like the executive company Siemens, are not correct because the Ministry had to make the guarantees before signing the contract with Siemens,” Gruikin said.

Last week, the Deputy Interior Minister Pavlin Dimitrov stated that Siemens had not delivered the needed forms, which was the reason for the delay of the issuing of the new ID documents.

He added that communications with Siemens are very difficult and managers decline to discuss any of their responsibilities and commitments.

Then Interior Ministry urged the people not to rush with submitting requests for documents unless they need them urgently.

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