The Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) invalidated ruling No. 39651 of 27.11.2025 in administrative case No. 12437/2025 of the Administrative Court of Sofia – city (ASSG), in the part that suspends the permitted preliminary implementation of the Ordinance on Amendments and Supplements to the Ordinance on the Organization of Traffic on the Territory of Sofia Municipality, adopted by Decision No. 883 of 13.11.2025 under item 6 of the Minutes of Meeting No. 51 of 13.11.2025 of the Sofia Municipal Council, published on 20.11.2025.
With the same ruling, the SAC terminates the court proceedings in the case initiated before the SAC upon a private appeal of the Sofia Municipal Council against the ruling of the first instance court.
The SAC accepts that the ruling of the ASG is valid, but - inadmissible and therefore should be invalidated. The arguments for this are as follows:
Acts amending and supplementing normative administrative acts do not produce independent effects, but serve the main regulatory act that they amend or supplement. They have a secondary character, because they introduce changes to the content of existing regulatory acts. On the one hand, until the act amending and supplementing a regulatory act enters into force, it does not produce legal effects, and such effects are produced only by the old, still unamended/unsupplemented provisions of the main regulatory administrative act.
On the other hand, given the fact that each act amending and supplementing a regulatory act serves the current main regulatory act and has a secondary character, after its entry into force it ceases to be independent, since from that moment it becomes part of the regulatory act that is being amended and supplemented. The only exception is with regard to the additional, transitional and final provisions, and only in the event that they are given independent meaning within the framework of an amended or supplemented by-law.
The Supreme Magistrates accept that the ordinance amending and supplementing the Ordinance on the organization of traffic on the territory of Sofia Municipality, in the part that amends the texts of the Ordinance on the prices of paid parking in Sofia, the working hours of the parking zones and their scope and prices, as well as on the amount of fines for violators, could not be an independent legal action, therefore the power exercised by the court to suspend the preliminary implementation of the Ordinance on the amendment and supplement is devoid of purpose.
The power exercised by the court to suspend the preliminary implementation of the transitional and final provisions of the Ordinance on the amendment and supplement to the Ordinance on the organization of traffic on the territory of Sofia Municipality is also devoid of purpose, since the latter had not entered into force at the time of the court's ruling.
According to § 7 of the transitional and final provisions to the Ordinance on Amendments and Supplements to the Ordinance, it enters into force on 05.01.2026.
At the time of the first instance court's ruling, none of the texts of the Transitional and Final Provisions of the Ordinance on Amendments and Supplements to the Ordinance on the Organization of Traffic on the Territory of Sofia Municipality, which were given independent meaning within the framework of an amended or supplemented by-law, had entered into force, therefore the power exercised by the court to suspend their preliminary implementation of these PZR is also devoid of purpose.
The ruling in administrative case No. 103 of 2026 is final.