President vetoes restoration of powers of Prosecutor General and Supreme Judicial Council Plenum

President Rumen Radev vetoed the restoration of the powers of the plenum of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and the Prosecutor General.

"The adopted transitional and final provisions of the Law on Amendments and Supplements to the Criminal Procedure Code deliberately ignore the supremacy of the Constitution," the head of state said.

According to Rumen Radev, the widely proclaimed justice reform with the latest amendments to the Constitution has been practically cancelled for an indefinite period of time by the transitional and final provisions of the Law on Amendments and Additions to the Criminal Procedure Code adopted on 1 February, which is a purposeful disregard of the supremacy of the Constitution and its immediate effect.

In his reasoning, the Head of State recalls that the recent amendments to the basic law reorganised the Supreme Judicial Council by dividing it into two councils - a college of judges and a college of prosecutors, and that the powers of the Prosecutor General and the Prosecutor's Office were severely reduced.

Rumen Radev also objects to the limited right of defendants to get familiar with evidence when a remand in custody measure is imposed.

The President believes that this approach finds no support in Directive 2012/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2012 on the right to information in criminal proceedings, which explicitly states that none of its provisions may be interpreted as a derogation from procedural guarantees established in the legal systems of the Member States.

"The revision of the contested provisions is an opportunity for the National Assembly to precisely fulfil the original purpose of the draft law without violating the hierarchical system of normative acts, the procedural requirements of constitutional lawmaking and the legal order on which our society is built," the Head of State further stated in his reasons.