A mission of the Venice Commission is in Sofia for talks with the Bulgarian institutions on the occasion of the project to amend the Constitution. It is expected that at the beginning of October, the experts will return an answer with a comment on the proposals, and with this answer, the procedure for changing the basic law will start.
Between the two readings, other texts could be introduced, which conceptually could not, however, change the ideas laid down in the present project. Ivan Bregov from the legal program of the Institute for Market Economy stated this to BNR.
According to him, the ideas related to the caretaker government and the powers of the president and the national holiday are the non-essential elements of the constitutional project. For him, the main focus is in chapter 6 – structure of the judiciary.
The powers of the president are affected in 2 directions, Bregov reminded in an interview for the program “Before all” and specified that they are related to the official offices and the election of the presidents of the supreme courts and the chief prosecutor, which will now only happen with a decision of the SJC without need for presidential decree. However, according to him, this power should remain:
“It is important because the presidential institution appeared to be some kind of attempt to correct the election of the SJC, to restart the procedure and for the reasoned refusal to carry out this election. This procedure is not subject to any other judicial or institutional control by any other state institution”.
I try not to see the direct political opposition, noted Ivan Bregov and added: “These issues should have been brought to the territory of politics, not to the territory of legislation”.
The constitutional draft was signed by GERB, PP-DB and DPS. The authorship is unknown, but it does not need to be named, the legal expert opined.
“This topic was taboo until 2-3 years ago. Now we see that the people who suppressed this topic in the media are the proponents of this bill, which shows that there is a very serious change in the Bulgarian political environment. /…/ We know, that they are subject to a sanctions regime from a friendly country, from the U.S. If this can motivate them, this is a serious incentive for a person to be more pro-reformist, especially since we see that Mr. Peevski completely seizes the initiative from PP- DB, wanting to challenge the already seriously delayed election of an inspector in the Inspectorate”.
“If this is the line of the DPS – that they are pro-reform, I would urge them to raise the issue of 2 cases. The first is the withdrawal of one of the key cases under KTB from judge Milen Vassilev and the assignment of the president of the Sofia Court of Appeal, Ms. Doncheva. The KTB case is very important. Will Mr. Peevski be equally pro-reform. The other case, which is also very important and directly affected the judicial independence of a specific judge – Miroslava Todorova, when her personal data was unlawfully published by the Inspectorate. These two inspections can untangle dependencies in the Inspectorate to the SJC. I call on Mr. Peevski to initiate a committee in the National Assembly to hold a hearing and submit the necessary reports to the prosecutor’s office. This would be useful.”
According to him, every power must have a corrective. According to him, the Inspectorate by itself is an expensive and useless body. “Shouldn’t it include judges and prosecutors who are of pre-retirement age, so that they cannot return to the system, which would untie their hands and make them more courageous”, suggested Ivan Bregov. According to him, this body “can and unfortunately acts under political pressure”.
In the constitutional draft, it is very well provided for judges to self-govern, but every measure of self-governance must have a countermeasure of accountability and responsibility, the expert was categorical. And added:
“If that doesn’t happen, we risk adopting a decent draft of the Constitution that doesn’t get a chance to be well enforced through the Judiciary Act.”
Politicians are very well aware that the mechanism for investigating the chief prosecutor is important, Bregov expressed his opinion. According to him, there is a text in the constitutional draft which says that the statute for the investigation of the Prosecutor General is regulated by law. According to him, it is good to have such a text.
