Three new Bulgarian Constitutional Court judges take oath of office
Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court swore in three new judges on November 14, with Nevin Osman-Yordanova, Sasho Penov and Galina Toneva-Dacheva taking their seats in a ceremony attended by Bulgarian President Roumen Radev.
Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court has 12 sitting judges, appointed for nine-year terms, without an option for a second one. They are appointed by all three branches of government – four by Parliament, four by the president and four by the joint assembly of the judges in the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court.
Every three years, four judges are replaced – this year, this includes one judge appointed by Parliament (Konstantin Penchev), one elected by their fellow judges (Tanya Raikovska, replaced by Toneva-Dacheva) and two appointed by the president (Mariana Karagyozova-Finkova and Filip Dimitrov, replaced by Osman-Yordanova and Penov).
Parliament is yet to discuss the appointment of a Constitutional Court judge to replace Penchev – the 51st National Assembly only sat for the first time earlier this week and is still struggling to elect a Speaker, without which it cannot conduct other business.
The previous legislature also did not tackle the issue, as the parties represented in Parliament were at constant loggerheads, making the prospect that a nominee would gather the necessary votes for the appointment unlikely.
That was the reason why a number of short-lived parliaments failed to appoint two judges to vacancies on the court, created by the departure of Anastas Anastasov and Grozdan Iliev in 2021.
It was not until January 2024 that Parliament appointed Dessislava Atanassova and Borislav Belazelkov to serve the remainder of the term until 2030 on the court.
With the current Parliament hamstrung by the same infighting and its composition potentially subject to change, as four complaints have been filed to the Constitutional Court asking for either vote recounts and partial or full annulment of the October 27 election results, it appears likely that the court will sit with only 11 judges in the immediate future.
(Photo: constcourt.bg)
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