Bulgaria Constitutional Court strikes down bulk of constitutional amendments
Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court ruled on July 26 to declare the majority of the changes made to the country’s constitution, in particular those affecting the judiciary, in the amendments passed by Parliament in December 2023, as invalid.
The ruling strikes down the provisions to re-organise the country’s Supreme Judiciary Council into separate bodies governing judges and prosecutors, as well as the ones affecting the powers of the prosecutor-general, including the a shorter term of office and a mechanism for investigating the prosecutor-general.
The judiciary reform package was strongly backed by the We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (WCC-DB) group in the previous National Assembly, which was part of the informal coalition behind the Nikolai Denkov Cabinet.
The coalition collapsed in April after the constituent groups of the coalition failed to reach agreement on the line-up of the Cabinet as part of the planned rotation of the prime minister’s office, with GERB-UDF’s Mariya Gabriel scheduled to take over from Denkov.
However, the constitutional court was split evenly on the other major provisions, such as those curtailing the powers of the head of state in regard to appointing a caretaker cabinet and the ones allowing Bulgarian nationals with dual citizenship to serve as members of Parliament or the Cabinet.
Due to the court’s failure to reach a majority on those provisions, those amendments will stand as passed by the National Assembly.
The constitutional amendments were challenged separately by President Roumen Radev – who only referred the provisions curtailing the powers of his office – and a group of MPs, who challenged the bill in its entirety. The court decided to merge the two complaints into one case.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
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