Intriguing ideas were shared by Minister of Justice Atanas Slavov in interview for “Capital” – the resigned regular government should be appointed as an interim cabinet, and the parliament should not be dissolved during the first year of its mandate. These proposals are included in the project of PP-DB for changes in the Constitution.
“We propose that the resigned government be appointed as a caretaker government, thus maintaining the link with the parliament, rather than the president picking up various individuals from here and there to be installed as ministers – something that creates potential or very real problems . We have included as a limitation in the first year of the mandate of the National Assembly that early elections should not be allowed, i.e. not to fall into this carousel of parliaments again in two or three months”, explains Slavov.
According to him, this would achieve two things: “firstly, stabilization of the parliament itself, which will not be permanently dissolved, and secondly, limiting the ability of the president to choose some people as ministers at his own discretion, who may never they had no access to state power and state administration.”
Another interesting moment from the right-wing constitutional project is the proposal that the Minister of Justice should propose the candidacy for the position of chief prosecutor – “exclusively”, as Slavov puts it. However, he clarifies, this idea is not shared by GERB-SDS and DPS. “The chief prosecutor is the state prosecutor, the minister of justice with his special constitutional function should be able to defend such a choice. And not as with the last two extremely problematic elections – of Tsatsarov and Geshev, which took place as a result of, so to speak, intra-system nomination, which led to a very serious deviation in the entire process,” he argued. In the draft, also, the term of the head of the prosecution is reduced from 7 to 5 years.
Another idea of the right, which the other parliamentary forces do not accept, is the premature termination of the mandate of the presidents of the supreme courts and the chief prosecutor, to be done through the Constitutional Court. Slavov believes that this way there will be “some kind of judicial control, which is not there now”. “At the moment, each of them, who is released by decree of the head of state, is no longer actively legitimized to complain about this act before the Supreme Court,” he explains.
The PP-DB also believes that the qualified majority with which the members of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and the Judicial Inspectorate are now elected should be reduced. When 180 deputies are not gathered, then a second attempt should be made, already with a lower majority of 140 votes, the right-wingers propose.
The Minister of Justice reiterated the several highlights of the reform, which were repeatedly stated before – the division of the SJC into judicial and prosecutorial; the introduction of the possibility for citizens to turn to the Constitutional Court – either through direct access, which Slavov calls “the most radical option”, or indirectly, through “lower courts within the framework of pending proceedings”.
It is understood from his words that for the time being it remains unclear whether a common constitutional project will be created by the political forces involved in the changes – PP-DB, GERB-SDS and DPS, or whether each of the factions will submit its own proposal (so far there is only from Ahmed Dogan’s party; the Gerbers and the Right claim to have ready-made projects, but have not published them).
He reiterates his expectation that the project will be submitted to the National Assembly in July. This means that consideration of the changes will begin in August at the earliest, as by procedure the parliament starts work on the proposal for changes no earlier than one month and no later than three months after its receipt.
“The elections of new bodies in the judiciary, a new type of judicial council, a new prosecutor’s council, a new chief prosecutor are actually a function of the implemented constitutional reform,” Slavov clarifies. This means that staffing in the judiciary should be left after the adoption of the changes – a position of the right, which, however, the Gerbers do not share.
If the parliament does not gather a majority of 180 deputies, then the changes will be delayed by 5-6 months, the Minister of Justice points out, and thus the election of the new SJC.
Slavov points out that “the commitment to constitutional reforms is the legitimization of the current, complex government”. “If it doesn’t happen the right way, I’ll accept that I don’t have the political confidence to go ahead.” This will be a disgrace to my efforts as the Minister of Justice,” he says. In other words, with such a development, he would give up his post.
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2023-07-02 23:11:14
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