TU-Sofia was left without leadership with a court decision
The election of rector of the Technical University of Sofia was overturned by the Supreme Administrative Court. With their decision, the senior magistrates upheld the complaint against the procedure of one of the unsuccessful candidates for the post – Prof. Vesko Panov. A new election of the rector is to take place, and until then the Minister of Education must appoint a rector. The decision of the SAC is final and refers to the election with which in 2019 Prof. Ivan Kralov was elected Rector.
The case revealed an unusual rule in the rules of procedure of one of our major universities – members of the General Assembly have the right to vote for more than one candidate for rector. Thus, with 380 members of the General Assembly present, the votes received for the five candidates were 809. After this first round, the two candidates with the most votes received in a runoff in which Prof. Kralov prevailed.
According to Prof. Panov, the possibility of casting more than one vote violates the Constitution, which guarantees the principle of equal suffrage in elections. This rule is briefly formulated with the maxim “One person – one vote – one weight”, the senior magistrates point out in their decision.
Initially, Prof. Panov’s appeal was rejected by the Sofia Administrative Court, which found no significant violations in the procedure. The SAC finds this opinion incorrect. According to the higher court, there is such a significant violation that it leads to the impossibility to verify whether the participants in the runoff were legally determined and affects the legality of the final act.
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