/ world today news/ A new draft law for changes to the Constitution was distributed to the parties during the presidential council in the National Assembly today.
It consists of three points on which there is agreement from most political forces, but it does not contain many of the original ideas of the rulers for judicial reform. If it gathers the support of 180 deputies, it will be submitted to the parliament tomorrow, and the current one will not be voted on. This was the idea that DPS leader Lyutvi Mestan launched on Tuesday. A day earlier, the chairman of ABV, Georgi Parvanov, also announced the withdrawal of the current bill.
From the words of Prime Minister Boyko Borisov after the end of the council, it became clear that the parties have united around three changes – the division of the Supreme Judicial Council into two collegiums – judicial and prosecutorial, increasing the role of the inspectorate and direct election of the members of the council from the judicial and the prosecutor’s collegium. These are all three points in the new project. However, the question of what will be the ratio between the members from the parliamentary and the members from the professional quota has not been clarified.
At the moment, the proposal for the prosecutor’s collegium is that 6 of the members are based on the proposal of the parliament and 6 from the magistrates, and for the judicial collegium – respectively 8 to 5. However, the opposition does not agree and wants the division of the judicial collegium to be 8 (of the judges) to 6 (from the parliament), and in the prosecutor’s office – 6 (from the prosecutors) to 5 (from the parliament).
The Reform Bloc has yet to decide whether they agree with the new option. If this happens, the bill will most likely be submitted to the National Assembly tomorrow with the signatures of 180 deputies. After that, however, the opinion of the Constitutional Court will be awaited as to whether these changes to the constitution are admissible at all, Boyko Borisov also stated, indicating that he has accepted another of the conditions of the DPS. A possible vote on the changes could take place at the end of the parliamentary recess in August or at the beginning of September at the earliest. According to the Constitution, the submitted draft must be considered no earlier than one and no later than three months after its submission.
The new draft effectively abandons some of the main ideas that were laid down in the text introduced in May, which was to be voted on on Friday. The proposals for open voting in personnel appointments, shortening the mandate of the SJC and the introduction of accountability mechanisms for the state prosecution have been dropped in the agreements. Lawyers commented to “Capital” that the “inclusion” of the direct election of council members from the magistrate’s quota is a hoax, because it is anyway provided for in the currently effective Judiciary Law.
Before the presidential council, the prime minister met with BSP and BDC, and the Reform Bloc – with DPS. “The position of the BSP on the changes to the Constitution remains unchanged”, declared the chairman of the Socialists, Mihail Mikov, after his meeting with Prime Minister Boyko Borisov this morning. According to the left party, there was no basis for constitutional changes without a serious analysis of all laws.
The Prime Minister’s conversation with the “Bulgarian Democratic Center” also did not produce a particular result. Yavor Haitov stated that the formation will support the declaration prepared by Danail Kirilov and Dimitar Lazarov from GERB. The idea for such a document came from the meeting between Borisov and the leader of ABV Georgi Parvanov On Monday, it discussed an option for the ABV to support the amendments in the first reading, but on the condition that a declaration from the parliament, in which commitments are made to revise the disputed texts between the first and second reading, is adopted.
Before the presidential council, the co-chairman of the Reform Bloc, Radan Kanev, commented that there is an opportunity to converge the positions on the changes in the constitution. “If there is a convergence of positions, everyone will give in to something, but we will not retreat from the deep structural reform of the SJC, because at the moment this is the nest of all problems,” Kanev added, as quoted by “Dnevnik”. Earlier in the morning, he told VTV that the Reform Bloc had made many compromises for judicial reform and had nowhere to back down. “We have reached the absolute minimum, from which, if we go further down in the depth of the reform, it will make absolutely no sense, except to go to Brussels to lie that we have made a reform. But these people have not grazed grass for a long time when it comes to Bulgaria,” he said.
The reform bloc will sit on the new proposals for constitutional changes this afternoon.
A facsimile of the new draft of amendments to the Constitution was published in the “24 Chasa” newspaper.
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