Most Bulgarians are not aware of their rights, related to inheriting. Those, who have some experience say the procedures are clumsy, complicated and not clear and some people even call the latter unfair. Only a bit more over 50 percent would ask for the help of a lawyer. The major heritage model in Bulgaria is the one, regulated by the law, as barely 12 percent of people have inherited what’s been left in a will and only 5 percent have written such a document. These are poll results with some 11 000 participants on the pravatami.bg website. The research is a part of the My Rights in Action project, executed by the team of young legal advisors of the online platform and with the financial support of the America for Bulgaria Foundation. Their ambition is to improve the legal knowledge of the Bulgarians, presenting the different rights and obligations in an accessible and understandable manner. Over 300 articles have been uploaded over the 2 years of the website’s existence, as more than 3 000 people read those every day. The poll results have been resumed in a report, named Family and Inheritance. What else does it show?

Issues like tutelage and guardianship are terra incognita to the Bulgarians. According to Georgi Darzhanliev, one of the creators of pravatami.bg, this is somehow normal, as the area is specific, concerning a certain group of people only. However, it is interesting to point out that the right of paternity leave, concerning a great part of the society, also remains unfamiliar. 45 percent of the fathers responded they never knew they had the right of 15 days of leave in case of a child’s birth. Fathers are less informed on their parental rights than mothers, the report’s authors comment. 90 percent of the ladies are aware of their rights, obligations and opportunities, provided by the law. However, the Bulgarians know well their marital rights, especially regarding the family property, though prenuptial agreements are still a taboo subject. 69 percent of the polled admit they haven’t signed such an agreement. What is the explanation?

“Many people relate the prenuptial agreement to the emotion of an eventual spoiling of the passion in a marriage,” Georgi Darzhanliev comments. “My personal opinion coincides with our legislation – that is an additional option for property relations to be settled through a contract. The prenup should be notarized and the parties may refer to it as some insurance, so that their property won’t be arranged by the common texts of the law, but the way they want. It is an instrument, still unknown by the Bulgarians, but it will be used more and more here.”

Domestic violence is another hot issue, reviewed by the young legal experts. Poll results show that 18 percent of the participants have been victims of such abuse more than once. However, the more alarming fact is that 17 percent of the respondents said that any signal towards the institutions in charge would be senseless.

“This means they don’t have confidence and that it should be restored,” Georgi says. “These are people, who are probably aware that they can ring alarm and where to do it, but those say to themselves: “What’s the point…?” The restoration of people’s confidence in justice is the main thing we need to work on, using legislation as a tool. That was why Romans created it. They say that the legislative science is the one of good and justice. Its function should be the arrangement of public relations, guaranteeing justice for those.”

English version: Zhikvo Stanchev