site.btaVolya Launches Campaign for Scrapping MP Immunity

Sofia, July 7 (BTA) - The Volya Parliamentary Group declared on Friday it is launching a campaign for the abolition of parliamentary immunity.

Volya leader and Deputy National Assembly Chairman Vesselin Mareshki pointed out that MP immunity is unnecessary and has become an instrument for pressurizing and manipulation in Bulgaria. "It is used for discrediting and media scandals, but when it turns out there are no grounds for that, there is no moral compensation for the person concerned. A request for lifting an MP's immunity is also a way of public lynching," he added.

"Volya's MPs do not need such a status," Mareshki said, calling on his colleagues from the other political forces to join in the motion. "They do not want voters to think they are hiding behind the walls of Parliament," he argued.

"We are calling upon you to be free," Mareshki said, asking National Assembly Chairman Dimiter Glavchev to be the first to set the example. He recalled Glavchev's words in 2015 that the public expects a solution from politicians and that maybe it is belated, as well as that MP immunity is an unjustified privilege which is not enjoyed by the rest of the Bulgarian citizens.

In June, Prosecutor General Sotir Tsatsarov asked the National Assembly to lift the parliamentary immunity of three Volya MPs: Mareshki, Krustina Taskova and Plamen Hristov. The three are under investigation for blackmail.