The mandate of this Supreme Court expired two years ago and has no legitimacy to elect a new chief prosecutor, nor the president of the Supreme Administrative Court. There is no legal right either, because the Constitution has direct effect. The former Minister of Justice also pointed to the National Assembly, for which a minimum of 48 signatures are required.
This was stated last night by the former Minister of Justice Assoc. Dr. Atanas Slavov in the program “Intersection Point" on Nova TV.
„For the most part, the constitutional reform was repealed, but not in the part of paragraph 23 of the Transitional and Final Provisions, which says that the two collegiums of the Supreme Judicial Council, until the election of the new Supreme Prosecution Council and the Supreme Judicial Council , cannot carry out the functions chosen by the new three leaders - the president of the Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Court of Cassation and the chief prosecutor", comments Slavov.
According to the member of the Executive Council of “Yes, Bulgaria!", the logic of the text in paragraph 23 was not only that there will be a new structure of the judicial system - there will obviously not be one after the scandal of the reform - but that this composition of the SJC has no legitimacy to conduct this election. “Throughout the constitutional process, in which I participated directly, these two arguments were valid - one formal (for a new structure) and the other substantive, the one about legitimacy,", Slavov said.
According to Atanas Slavov, there is a valid legal dispute and therefore it is appropriate to refer the Constitutional Court, which should interpret, in the event of a contradiction between paragraph 23 of the Constitution and the regime under the Judiciary Act, which should be applied? “I have no doubt what should be applied - it is the Constitutional text, because there is no way that an ordinary law, such as the Judiciary Act, can suspend the application of one paragraph of the Constitution.
The former minister of justice named the National Assembly, for which a minimum of 48 signatures are required, the president and the Supreme Court of Cassation among the entities that can appeal to the Constitutional Court. Slavov added that everything possible should be done so that there are no doubts that when it begins, the procedure will meet all requirements, including constitutional ones.
Meanwhile, according to Slavov, another step that the people's representatives can take is a change in the Law on the Judiciary, which would improve the procedure for electing a new SJC and introduce sufficient guarantees for direct representation of the interests of the professional community and lack of political interference. And then to hold the new election for the Supreme Judicial Council, which will already carry out the procedure for the election of the chief prosecutor and chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council.