site.btaEnvironmentalists Take Stand against Amendments to Three Acts

Sofia, July 26 (BTA) - Environmentalists took a stand against recent amendments to three acts.

At a BTA-hosted news conference Thursday, Vera Staevska of the Association for Research Practices said that transitional and final provisions of the Environmental Protection Act revoke provisions of the Water Act concerning sanitary protective areas around drinking water reservoirs.

Next, the environmentalists argued that amendments to the Hunting Act are "an attempt to demonstrate that something is being done against African swine fever".

Also, amendments to the Administrative Procedure Code passed conclusively on Wednesday were approved in a non-transparent way with ulterior motives. According to the environmentalists, the purpose of the increased fees for court litigations is to deter members of the public from appealing acts of the state bodies. The environmentalists urged the President to veto the amendments.

With the amendments to the Administrative Procedure Code, the fees collected from NGOs for cassation appeals which can bring financial benefit for the respective organizations have been raised up to 900-fold. Up until now, the standard fee was 5 leva, but from now on it may be up to 4,500 leva.

Environmental activist Toma Belev said that the increase of the fees makes this type of justice the most expensive in Europe. Belev also said that administrative justice in Bulgaria is not slow at all.