Documents

Incident log

It has been going on for months and I no longer remember what happened when.

Verified 14 August 2026

This is not a letter and it goes to nobody. It is one sheet you fill in for yourself on the day something happens: what happened, when, where, who did it and who else was there. Eight months later the difference is between „they harassed me constantly“ and fourteen dates with names. The first is not evidence. The second is — and it is the way into every other document here.

Goes to: Nobody. It stays with you — that is the whole point. The only document here that is not filed anywhere and never travels through an institution.
Who else reads it: Nobody — unless you produce it yourself. But write it expecting the whole log to go, not the parts you would choose: in a dispute the other side can ask the court to order you to produce it (чл. 190, ал. 1 ГПК), and the court reads the entries that hurt alongside the ones that help. The law does know of refusing to produce a document that touches your private life, and of producing an extract from it instead (чл. 191 ГПК) — but that is for the court to weigh, it is a question for a lawyer, and it is not something to rely on while you write. And if the notebook lives in a shared drawer, or the file is on a phone a partner or a parent picks up without asking, it already has a second reader.
Can this be taken back: Entirely — for as long as it is only with you. Nothing is filed, nobody is notified, there is no incoming number: it is the only document in this section you can destroy. The copies are not destroyed with it, though — the message you sent, the email and the photo already in the cloud stay where they are.
Deadline: None — which is exactly why it goes first. Everything else here has a clock already running. This you can do tonight, while you are still deciding whether to file anything at all.
Legal basis: чл. 180 ГПК — private documents signed by the persons who issued them are evidence that the statements in them were made by those persons. чл. 181, ал. 1 ГПК — when such a document has a certain date as against third parties. The practical force of the log comes from чл. 9 ЗЗДискр: the other side has to prove that the principle of equal treatment was not breached — but only once you have presented facts on the basis of which discrimination may be presumed.

Before you write the first line

A log cuts both ways. Kept on the day, it carries weight — and that is exactly why the other side can ask to see it if this ever reaches a dispute. The lines that help you come in the same package as the lines that hurt you. So write only what you saw and heard and would repeat in a courtroom: no verdicts, and no guesses about what the other person was thinking. And if there is something about your own conduct in it that you would rather not write, that is the first question for a lawyer — not something to decide on your own to bury.
If something worries you enough that you want to leave it out — that is a question for a lawyer, not something to hide. Advice of the „just do not write it down“ kind detonates under cross-examination: the other side knows about it, and your own log says it never happened. A lawyer can tell you how such a thing is explained. This sheet cannot. At „Действие“ they answer for free.
The log itself can out you. Somebody keeping an eight-month log of anti-gay harassment is keeping the most complete written account of their own orientation that exists — in the notebook in the drawer, or in the file on the phone that a partner or a parent picks up without asking. Decide where it will live before you write anything at all.
Do not out other people. Do not write down anyone else’s orientation and do not write down anyone’s HIV status — not even when it is part of what happened, not even when it explains why somebody stayed quiet. Your orientation is yours to disclose. Theirs is not yours to write down.
Do not open or print this on a work or school device, and not over the work Wi-Fi. The network sees the address of the page before you have typed a single letter, and the office printer keeps a print history with the document’s name in it. Use a copy shop, a printer at home, or copy it out by hand.

What the log does later

It structures your own testimony. People do not testify badly because they are lying — they testify badly because they are asked for a date and what they remember is a feeling. A list gives you back the order: when, where, who, what was said.
It dates the things memory blurs. Eight months on, „it was somewhere around Easter“ becomes „17 April, about 14:20, in the store room, in front of two people“. One is a recollection. The other can be checked.
It triggers the shift in the burden of proof. Under чл. 9 ЗЗДискр, once the party claiming to have been discriminated against presents facts on the basis of which discrimination may be presumed, the other side has to prove that the principle of equal treatment was not breached. A vague recollection does not do that work. A dated list of names, places and people present does.
A sheet signed by you is evidence that the words in it are yours — that is чл. 180 ГПК. But the date at the top binds nobody else. Under чл. 181, ал. 1 ГПК a private document has a certain date as against third parties only from the day it is certified, from the day its content is reproduced in an official document, or from the day some other fact occurs that establishes beyond doubt that it was drawn up earlier. In plain language: the other side can always say you wrote the whole log the night before the hearing.
So an entry is worth more if it is anchored the same day in something whose date does not come from you. Except that every way of doing that creates a copy you can never take back. Which is why the options are set out below — each one with its cost, and not as a trick.

What you type here stays here

The form has nowhere to submit to: the rule form-action 'none' in the site's security policy forbids your browser from submitting it anywhere at all. We receive nothing, and could not.

But the network sees that you opened the page. Do not open this on a work or school device, and not over the work Wi-Fi.

The document

INCIDENT LOG

This sheet is a blank form. Print it empty and copy it, or copy it out by hand into a notebook. One incident = one entry. An entry is written on the day it happened or the next morning, in ink. Old entries are not copied out fresh and dates are not changed: a log kept as things happen carries more weight than an account assembled later.

BEFORE THE FIRST LINE 1. Only what was seen and heard is recorded — only what could be repeated in court. This log can be demanded by the other side as well. 2. Another person’s orientation and another person’s HIV status are not recorded. 3. If something is hard to write down, it is a question for a lawyer, not something to leave out. Every sheet is signed.

ENTRY No ______ Date: [ dd.mm.yyyy ] Time: [ hh:mm ] Where: [ the place ] __________________________________________________________

WHAT HAPPENED — word for word, as far as it is remembered. Quotation marks around the exact words only. [ what was said and done ] __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________

WHO DID IT: [ name and position ] __________________________________________________________ WHO ELSE WAS THERE: [ the names of anyone present ] __________________________________________________________

WHAT IT MEANT for work or for health — one line: [ what changed ] __________________________________________________________

ANCHORED THE SAME DAY IN: nothing — just this sheet WHAT I KEPT — and where it is: [ photos, emails, messages — and where they are ] __________________________________________________________ Signature: ____________________

The next entry — on a new sheet or on a new line.

No printer? Print the blank form at a copy shop and fill it in by hand — a handwritten document is just as valid. It is also the safest option: no file, no print queue, no Downloads folder.

Before you press Print: in the print settings, untick "Headers and footers". Otherwise the page title and the site address appear on the sheet — and whoever receives the document sees them.

How to keep it

The dullest option is also the safest: a paper notebook, in ink, one entry for each thing that happened, never rewritten. No file, no cache, no account, nothing that can be wiped remotely. Its risk is a single physical one: somebody can find it — which is what the next line is about. That notebook has no certain date against anyone, and it is still worth keeping: a log with no certain date is a great deal more than no log at all.
Where it lives: somewhere you control. Not the shared drawer, not the glovebox of the shared car, not the bag somebody else tidies. Your desk at work is not your space — it belongs to the employer and it can be gone through without you.
A message to somebody you trust — the cheapest anchor. The cost: the entry lives in their account, on their phone, and inside a friendship that can end. If that person ever becomes a witness, the message is part of the case.
An email to yourself — this works, but never to a work address: the work mailbox belongs to the employer, the employer administers it, and access to it does not depend on you. And not at all if a partner or a relative has access to the account, or to the phone it stays open on.
A photo of the sheet that keeps its own data — the date and time stay inside the file. Two things to watch: messaging apps usually strip that data when the photo is sent, and the photo lands in your gallery and normally in the cloud, which means on one more device.
Anything filed with an institution that gives you back an incoming number — the strongest anchor and the most exposed. The date is no longer just your word for it. But the incident is no longer just your business either: a file is opened, and in most cases the other side is served a copy of it.
If you fill this in in the browser: in discreet mode — which is the default here — there is nowhere for a draft to be saved and everything disappears the moment you close the tab. Do not rely on it. Print it or copy it out by hand before you close.
If you do keep a file: give it a name that says nothing, and keep it out of the folder your photo app uploads automatically. And remember that a phone keyboard learns words — names, the company, the slur — and later suggests them in another app, to whoever is holding the phone.

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