MEPs overwhelmingly rejected his request to waive her immunity
The European Parliament overwhelmingly rejected the request of Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev to waive Elena Yoncheva’s parliamentary immunity. In a secret ballot last night, 418 MEPs out of 693 backed a report by French MEP Gilles LeBreton justificationthat Geshev’s request has no legal basis and pursues political goals. 264 MEPs opposed the conclusions in his report, while 11 abstained.
Elena Yoncheva was defended with arguments by the far right Lobreton, who is from the National Assembly of Marina Le Pen. This means that the political picture of the vote was probably colorful and did not follow the classic division between left and right.
The rapporteur points out the main flaw in Geshev’s request, using the Latin term fumus persecutionis (pursuit behind a smokescreen), which means that someone is being persecuted for disguised purposes. The European Parliament agrees to waive immunity only when the objectives are purely legal and well-founded. The report shows that Geshev pursued political goals, not, as claimed, “the waiver of Elena Yoncheva’s immunity in connection with a criminal investigation under Article 253 (5) in conjunction with paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code (money laundering)”.
LeBreton notes the following defect in the position of the Prosecutor General: “Pre-trial proceedings were initiated against her (Yoncheva) only on August 31, 2018, ie at a time when her political involvement has already become well known, while the alleged violation has occurred in 2010 and that such a delay was not convincingly justified “. This means that Geshev did not seek to enforce the law against a crime, but aimed to strike a politician who had emerged as an opponent of the then government (“the trial was launched after a signal from two deputies, ie. political opponents of Elena Yoncheva “).
Geshev’s political intrigue was also exposed in connection with the behavior of former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, because “documents provided to the European Court of Human Rights (which) reveal that a telephone conversation about the initiation of criminal proceedings against Elena Yoncheva was cited published on June 12, 2020 by several Bulgarian electronic media, and (…) an expert report attached to the file, concludes that one of the votes is that of the Bulgarian Prime Minister “.
According to the rapporteur, all this and other listed facts give rise to “serious suspicions about the possible intention to harm Elena Yoncheva’s political activity, and in particular her activity as a Member of the European Parliament, in this case the fact that the proceedings were instituted. before her election as an MEP is not enough to dispel suspicion “. The final conclusion in the document is that “in the present case, the presence of fumus persecutionis can be presumed”. That is why the European Parliament “decides not to lift the immunity of Elena Yoncheva”.
“I thank the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs for their time and attention to my case. I have never questioned their qualifications and experience in solving such cases, “said Elena Yoncheva. She clarified that the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament do not provide for an independent, personal waiver of immunity by the MEP himself. “MEPs do not have a separate immunity – it is considered to be common to the EP and it is usually assessed whether the removal in each case will affect the activities of parliament as a whole,” said Elena Yoncheva. In the current term of the European Parliament, of all the requested immunities, there is only one other rejected case – MEPs have retained the immunity of former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt.
The final decision comes more than two years after then-Chief Prosecutor Sotir Tsatsarov initiated the procedure in 2019. However, his successor Ivan Geshev did not withdraw the request and continued to support it. During this time, the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs examined the case in detail and presented their opinion at the end of January this year. The committee has MEPs from more than ten Member States. The decision is not subject to appeal.
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