The decision on your asylum procedure may be positive: you are granted a status (refugee or humanitarian), but it may also be negative: you are refused a status.
The staff of the Agency for Refugees are obliged to give you a copy of this decision against your signature certifying the receipt; before receiving it, the decision must be read out to you by an interpreter in a language which you speak and understand.
If the decision issued on your case refuses the granting of either a refugee or a humanitarian status, and you disagree, you have the right to lodge an appeal before the court and request that the court repeals that decision and orders that the Agency for Refugees grant you a status.
Do not refuse to sign the decision and take a copy of it. Even if you do not sign the decision refusing a status, the time limit for appealing it before the court will continue running. Moreover, you need the decision refusing a status, because, in case you want to appeal against it, you will have to immediately take it to a lawyer. The lawyer needs this negative decision in order to write the appeal claim, as its text contains the grounds on which you were refused a status.
If you do not lodge the appeal within the time limit indicated in the decision, the court will not examine it, the decision refusing a status will become final, and your asylum procedure in Bulgaria will be terminated. Then the Bulgarian authorities will have the right to return you to your country of origin.
When you lodge an appeal you do not pay a fee, as according to the law the court proceedings in these cases are free-of-charge.
You are advised to use the services of a lawyer for the writing and lodging of the appeal.
