The Chairman of the National Assembly should lead the meeting until a new one is elected. The Constitution in Art. 99, para. 5, after the changes from December last year, categorically lists the persons who can be ex-officio prime ministers. It is not the incumbent or the oldest member of parliament who leads the meeting until the election of a new one. This is what he said in the show “ More from the day“ at BNT, the professor of constitutional law Dr. Orlin Kolev.
„The moment the National Assembly elects a president, there will be no temporary one, the Constitution does not recognize such a figure, then he will appear as a potential acting prime minister,”, he stressed.
„The constitutional legislator has shown a normative intolerance regarding the impossibility of the National Assembly to exercise its functions and in this sense the election of bodies of the National Assembly has separated them from the process of forming a government, if a regular government is not formed , elections will take place. In practice, the production of the elections is not placed in the implementation of an uncertain future event, such as the election of the President of the National Assembly. Selection of NA bodies - chairman, committees and the membership of committees does not depend on the majority of the parliament, while the process of forming a government, starting with consultations with the president and subsequently handing over mandates, begins with the formation of parliamentary groups. Unlike the chairman and the committees, the parliamentary groups are not organs of the National Assembly. Their formation depends solely on the will of the people's representatives and this is a form of association. In this way, people's representatives can unite in parliamentary groups. This right for them arises from the moment they took the oath, and the parliamentary group by general definition is the mirror image or transfer of the party outside the parliament, within the parliament”, explained the constitutionalist.
„When the parliamentary groups are formed, they are not placed in dependence on the chairman of the National Assembly and in this sense they are not bound by the election of the chairman of the National Assembly. People's representatives must notify that they are uniting in a parliamentary group. For all parliamentary activity – legislative and control, organs of the National Assembly are needed, Kolev specified.
„A cabinet can be voted on if the people's representatives inform the chairman that they are uniting in a parliamentary group”, he pointed out.
„Since there is no elected regular chairman of the National Assembly, it is not an obstacle to remove the immunity of a member of parliament. The People's Representative can waive his immunity or this decision can be taken by the plenary session of the NA”, specified Orlin Kolev regarding the requested immunity of Ceyhan Ibryamov.
„ There are no risks of a constitutional crisis. If they fail to nominate a president, the people's representatives will form the parliamentary groups and the roulette wheel will turn, the constitutionalist also said.