BULGARIA’S PRIME MINISTER BORISSOV CALLS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES TO FURTHER JUDICIAL REFORM

Without amendments to the Constitution, the judicial reform would be incomplete and ineffective, Bulgaria’s Prime Minister said at a press conference on the 16th of April.

PM Borissov explained that earlier today, together with the Minister of Interior and the Minister of Justice, he met with the Chief Prosecutor and the Heads of the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court, to discuss the ideas for changes related to the judicial reform.

Consultations with the other parliamentary parties would be initiated in order to reach consensus.

Borissov said that the proposed amendment to the Constitution would allow the Supreme Judicial Council to be reorganized. The idea of the government is to divide it into two chambers – one of the judges and one of the prosecutors. “The judges’ chamber will consist of judges primarily, elected by judges. The other chamber would include prosecutors and investigating magistrates, and the larger quota would be elected by Parliament in order to control the work of the prosecution”, PM added.

Roumyana Bachvarova, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior said that the government would very much rely on a dialogue with all parties represented in Parliament in order to reach super-majority vote.

The amendment to the constitution can be passed if it gets three-fourth majority of the MP votes, i.e. 180 votes from all MPs in Bulgaria’s Parliament. This means that in order to get the required majority, not only MPs from the ruling coalition: GERB, Reformist Bloc, the Patriotic Front, ABC party and Bulgarian Democratic Centre, but at least some parties from the opposition – The Movement for Rights and Freedoms or the Bulgarian Socialist Party, would also need to give their votes in favour of the changes proposed by the government.