With the appeal filed on March 24 this year with the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) against the refusal of the prosecutorial college of the Supreme Judicial Council to appoint a temporary acting prosecutor general, other than Borislav Sarafov, the Minister of Justice Andrey Yankulov maintains his arguments from the meeting on March 11 this year that the college's interpretation creates a state body with a potentially perpetual temporary mandate, which is constitutionally intolerable. Yankulov explicitly requests the Supreme Administrative Court to refer the issue for resolution to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg through a preliminary ruling from the point of view of compliance with Union law.
The arguments of the members of the prosecutor's office that almost three years ago, in June 2023, they appointed Borislav Sarafov as acting prosecutor general until the election of a new one, and that this issue cannot be reviewed, except on explicit legal grounds, turn the temporary position into a permanent one, without a clearly defined term of office. However, such a position cannot exist in a state governed by the rule of law, in which the principle of mandate is observed in the exercise of public functions. This is also explicitly established by the mandatory interpretation of the Constitution, issued by the Constitutional Court in constitutional case No. 12/2010, which states: “The indefinite term in the exercise of power is excluded and this is a conquest of the democratic state. Ultimately, all power emanates from the sovereign and is an expression of democratic power. Perpetual power is its negation.“
In connection with the main argument in the appeal, an analysis of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union in development has been made – Opinion of the Advocate General of 5 June 2025 in case C-769/22, which provides a legal opinion that the Court in Luxembourg should begin to apply the protection of fundamental principles in the rule of law as a judicial standard by which courts can assess the validity of decisions to appoint higher judicial bodies, and therefore the refusal to review the issue of the temporary exercise of powers of such a body may be contrary to Union law.
The appeal also puts forward other arguments: for a lack of competence of the Prosecutorial College of the SJC, since the issue should be decided by the plenary session; that the law limiting the term of office of the interim acting director also applies to the “established“ positions of those already appointed; that the decision of the Prosecutor's College was taken in contradiction with other decisions of the College regulating similar cases of interim acting directors; that there is an internal contradiction in the arguments of the members of the College - on the one hand, they accept that the Minister of Justice cannot propose the appointment of a new interim acting director at all, and on the other - the issue has been considered on its merits and whether it is possible to appoint another person to the position, given the current legal framework.
The Minister of Justice expects the case to be heard in a short time, given the importance of the issue for the proper functioning of the state, and hopes for a careful response from the Supreme Administrative Court to all the arguments raised.