Contributed by Rada Elenkova, BGRF

A female prisoner with a bisexual orientation won a case against the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office with the help of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, announced representatives of the organization yesterday.

In 2006, she filed an application addressed to the prosecutor’s office in Sliven to be granted a conditional early release because of her proper behavior in prison. She also worked there and had served the larger part of her punishment.

The prosecutor rejected the application with the motive that she had “unambiguous and stable homosexual orientation” and disturbing factors were “her lifestyle” and “emotional state, thinking and behaviour”.

Sofia City Court, the second instance on the case, defended the dignity of the woman by criticizing the institution for discrimination and forbidding the prosecutors to treat the claimant as an inferior person due to her sexual orientation. The court awarded monetary compensation to the woman for the moral damages.

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee won for a second time a case against the prosecutor’s office for obvious discrimination. In 2007, Sofia City Court confirmed a decision of the Regional Court, and as a result the institution was sentenced, because of explicit anti-Roma motives in an ordinance with which a prosecutor rejected to seek responsibility for the death of a Roma.   

 The prosecutor’s office still cannot apply equally the law without reference to factors such as race, gender or sexual orientation.

The decision is not final.

Complied from: Standartnews.com – 09.02.2009