Yordanka Bekirska
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I have been working as a family lawyer since 2009. My interests and my personal practice are mostly focused on family law cross-border cases. I deal with all spheres of family law – parental rights and child custody, child abduction, relocation, divorce procedures, domestic violence issues, filiation/parentage cases, LGBTI parental rights, surrogacy.
Since 2009 I am registered as a mediator and I keep practicing family mediation on a daily basis.
Since 2012 I was appointed as a lecturer for lawyers and legal professionals at the Supreme Bar Council Education Center for Lawyers.
I am the President of Family Law Commission at the Federation of European Bar Associations (FBE).
In my PhD at the Institute for the State and the Law at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences I research the jurisprudence on Child Abduction and Relocation and the lack of understanding the parental rights standards.
Relevant experiences and positions
I have been working as a family lawyer since January, 2009 at:
1. Specialized Law Office in International and Family Law “Bekirska § Partners” – since 2009 – on going;
2. Bulgarian Lawyers for Human Rights Foundation – (2013 – 2020):
2.1. 2013 – 2015 as member of the executive council and
2.2. 2015 – 2020 as Executive Director of Bulgarian Lawyers for Human Rights;
3. Education Center for Lawyers at the Supreme Bar Council – 2012 – on going;
4. Permanent member at National Legal Aid Network for Children since 2017 – on going;
5. External Fellow at International Academy for Family Lawyers since 2018 – on going;
6. Representative of Bulgaria at AdvoAlliance Group, Hungary – 2019 – on going;
7. President of Family Law Commission at Federation of the European Bars (hosting by Sofia Bar Association) – since November, 2022 – on going.
Picture of my work: Currently, I deal with 49 cross-border pending cases. For 2023 the newest cases I was instructed in are 17 until today. At the present I work on 8 cases on child abduction and 2 relocation transborder cases.
Extra duties: Based on my daily work, my causes in relation to family rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, many of my cases became popular on Bulgarian media. This is why I have very strong media presence. I use to be invited to different universities and events to give speeches, lectures, master classes, mentoring sessions, etc.
Awards: For my devoted work on cross-border cases in relation to international child abduction I was awarded with 2018 prize at the National Bulgarian Judicial Awards in the “Transborder justice” category. The previous year (2017) I was one of the 5th listed and nominated legal practitioners in the same category.
In 2020 one of my cases (USA/Bulgaria 1980 Hague Convention Case) was listed among 5 cross-border cases and nominated at the National Bulgarian Judicial Awards for its complex and my hard efforts.
Some personal questions
What is your opinion on the law / case law on child relocation in your country?
Those cases are popular in Bulgaria mainly when one of the parents decides to relocate the child in another country. Once the relocation is within the borders of Bulgaria, the parents do not even think they do something unlawful. They usually move to the chosen location and register the addresses of the kids at the other place immediately. Just after that the parent put the children at school. What is important is that the new registered address is used for change of the local competence of the court. Usually, the court competence dispute takes about three months and after that it is easy to prove that the child is settled, well adapted to his/her new place. The court is due to change the rights of visitation schedule.
What is your advice to parents who are thinking about relocating with a child?
In case those parents ask me for an advice I do recommend them to use the legal way to relocate because it is much safer.
In case they want to start court procedure I advise them on all the relevant evidences related to relocation I need to initiate a successful case – place for living, good school, extra classes, medical services, etc. The main problem is that the court procedure can be very, very slow. When the reason for relocation is a new job for the parent or new marriage, the time could be limited because of the circumstances. On the other hand, the parent who want to move to other location should settle her/himself at the new place and then to convince the court that relocation safeguards the best interest of the child.
What is your advice to parents about international parenting plans?
It is not popular in Bulgaria. I try to popularize it but reach them out only by mediation.
What is your opinion on/ experience with the interests of siblings in child relocation cases?
At the moment I deal with an abduction case where the father wrongfully retained his children in Bulgaria after the summer vacation. The children refused to return in Belgium, saying they were systematically neglected by their mother. The daughter is close to 16 years old and she will not be returned in Belgium because she is mature already. However, the young boy is 10 years old and he has good emotional connection with the mother. My defense strategy is to convince the judge that in case of separating the siblings it will put both children at risk, because of their very strong psycho-emotional connection. I believe that once the parents are separated the only strength can be kept by the sibling and they should not be separated.
Why is it interesting for you as a lawyer to work on these cases?
Working on International Family Law cases is a great professional challenge for me. I love to devote my work on abduction, because the standard is strict and no mixture with parental rights case is tolerated.
My knowledge and experience in this field is deep and specific because I was trained at International Abduction Cases in Brussels in 2012. Abduction Hague Convention is not well known in Bulgaria and only limited number of lawyers deal with it. There are only 9 judges who are instructed in abduction cases. In the Central Authority there are only 3 experts. We are a small community and we aim to implement the Convention proficiently. The meaning of it is to limit mixing the parental rights court procedure with abduction ones. We aim to speed up the court procedure and to exclude the violation of the court orders.
At the same time, I try to extend the judicial limits on the Hague Convention cases with cases of wrongful detention of children once the parents arrived together in Bulgaria and one of the parents left the borders by him/herself (without the children and without the other parent). Bulgaria is out of Schengen list and children can leave the borders only with permission of both parents.
Do you advice parents to file criminal charges in case of child abduction?
Parental child abduction is not a crime in Bulgaria, so we do not use this measure. However, when the child is abducted in Bulgaria from a country where the criminal charges are available, I never recommend to be filed. According to my opinion it becomes very complicate for the abductive parent to return in the same state in case the child is returned.
Once I had a case with Norway and my client – the abductive father, was registered in the Schengen information system list. Even we won the Hague convention case and the children were settled in Bulgaria, my client was not removed from the Schengen list. Few months later he decided to go to Warsaw for a medical check on the health of his son. The father was arrested in Warsaw. Then the extradition court procedure had started in Warsaw. It was successful for my client and he returned in Bulgaria. Once he arrived in Bulgaria he was arrested again. The second extradition case was initiated before the Bulgarian court. What is interesting is that we have convinced the judge to start preliminary ruling procedure before the Court of Justice of EU in order to answer if it is in harmony with the European law.
