Hristo Ivanov brought Delyan Peevski, lawyer Radomir Cholakov, former GERB MP, former chairman of the constitutional and legal committee in parliament, told the Bulgarian National Radio. He remembered the constitutional changes and recalled his position and what happened then:
"It was extreme pressure. I felt physical pain from what I knew we were doing. There was political dictate. My leader had told me "You listen to what Hristo Ivanov is telling you". Peevski very correctly captured the political moment then that due to the need to have a constitutional majority of 160+ votes, he had become - brought in by Hristo Ivanov, an integral part of the majority in question. I am a direct witness. I was the chairman of the constitutional commission and everything happened before my eyes".
The Constitution says that the National Assembly usually amends it with 180+ votes, Cholakov noted. At the time, he was convinced that they had to achieve this number of votes:
"It was not impossible. I had talked to my colleagues from the BSP, from "Vazrazhdane", who had remarks, but in my opinion they had the inner attitude to participate in the amendments to the Constitution, because they realized that this was important, responsible and prestigious. But then Hristo Ivanov did not want us to make attempts to expand the majority to 180".
According to him, Hristo Ivanov has had his importance for politics and will continue to have it:
"I am sure that sooner or later he will return".
Why did we set out to amend the Constitution, the former MP asked rhetorically. If we limited the Prosecutor General to such an extent that it was as if he did not exist, we would most likely have 28 or 29 Prosecutor Generals, he commented.
"What worries me a lot is - some idea comes to us, we think it is ideal and very cool, we start pursuing it by all means and do not assess the impact. We do not think in cause-and-effect relationships. We cannot think logically more than 2 moves ahead".
In his words, legislation is slow, hard and very meticulous work.
In the program "Above All" Radomir Cholakov also commented on the investigation into the arrest of Boyko Borisov in March 2022. According to him, 10 violations of the Criminal Code were committed:
"I am absolutely internally convinced that the arrest in its entirety represents a series of committed crimes. I expected that the prosecutor's office should react even then.
Lawyers have started to think like politicians, it remains for politicians to start thinking like lawyers, the former MP expressed his opinion.
According to him, sometimes there is incomprehensible inaction by the prosecutor's office:
"In the case of obvious violations - the violation that was committed with Borisov's arrest was the most obvious of all. The violation with dual citizenship - also - there is a decision of the Constitutional Court there. And the prosecutor's office is not acting".
According to him, now Borisov feels uncomfortable because the prosecutor's office started to demand the immunities of both Kiril Petkov and Lena Borislavova at this very moment. He feels uncomfortable because he understands that there is a political subtext, he added, but emphasized on the other hand that 650 thousand GERB members have been waiting for this to happen for a long time.
"Our reform activities created a semblance of reform, blew the whistle, shifted the focus to topics that are not the solution. Amending the Constitution was a diversion. Instead of changing the Criminal Procedure Code, we blew the whistle and amended the Constitution, from which it was clear that no real judicial reform could be achieved", commented Cholakov.
According to him, judicial reform is a mantra that will never end. Everyone has an interest in talking about this reform, so the topic will not stop, he was categorical and added that the reform will happen when we stop talking about it.
He emphasized that at the moment all political forces are expected to unanimously tell the Supreme Judicial Council to stop the procedure for selecting a new prosecutor general - this moral action is expected. "The biggest political and legal mistake we made in the 49th National Assembly is that we did not change the Supreme Judicial Council. If we had changed the Supreme Judicial Council, this conversation would not exist at the moment", the lawyer believes.
According to him, sustainable legislation is not possible in this parliament. After all, there are routine issues that need to be resolved and for which there is no problem what the majority will be, he specified and added his opinion: "If a proposal is reasonable, why not support it. If a party that does not belong to the majority makes a reasonable proposal, why not accept it. For me, this is how parliamentarism is done and this is how legislation is made".
Laws should be adopted with maximum consensus, Cholakov believes, noting that the expectations, however, are in the other direction - for one group to prevail over another, to defeat and crush it. According to him, a law adopted with 121 votes is not stable because there is another group of 119 people who are against it and who will use every opportunity to overthrow it. According to him, there will not be many cases in which it will be necessary to seek dynamic majorities.