site.btaDecision of National Assembly Chairperson Miteva Not to Call Extraordinary Sitting of Parliament on Monday Attacked by Politicians

September 12 (BTA) - Parliament will not hold an extraordinary sitting on September 13 as announced on Saturday, National Assembly Chairperson Iva Miteva said during a TV morning show on Sunday. Miteva said she will call an extraordinary sitting on Wednesday, September 15, provided that President Rumen Radev does not issue the expected decree to disband the incumbent legislature and set the date for the next
early parliamentary elections which Radev has said will be November 14.

At the sitting first called on Monday the MPs were to vote on second reading revisions to the Act on Protection of Persons Threatened in Connection with Criminal Proceedings which envisage transferring control over the Protection Bureau from the direct authority of the Prosecutor General under the Ministry of Justice.

Miteva said she did not call an extraordinary sitting on Monday as she felt obliged to comply with a requirement in Parliament's rules of procedure requiring the elapse of 72 hours from the time a document to be considered in a plenary sitting is first sent out to MPs. She said that the demand for the extraordinary sitting, signed by 48 MPs, reached Parliament's secretarial office shortly before 2 am on Saturday, after the MPs had extended their working hours on Friday until final passage of the state budget update.

Miteva's decision was met with opposition from the Rise Up BG! Here We Come! parliamentary group and Democratic Bulgaria.

Rise up BG! floor leader Maya Manolova said, speaking at a briefing in front of the building of Parliament on Sunday, that Miteva's refusal to call the extraordinary sitting on Monday violates the Constitution.

Manolova stressed that the demand for the Monday sitting was signed by all the MPs from the parliamentary group of Rise Up BG!, the entire parliamentary group of Democratic Bulgaria, and
several MPs from the There Is Such a People Party, so as to ensure that the application is valid. According to Manolova, Miteva herself submitted the item about the budget update before the requisite 72 hours had elapsed.

Rise UP BG! Co-chairman Arman Babikyan, who too spoke at the briefing, urged the National Assembly "to pass bills so that Bulgaria is changed". Babikyan said that the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, GERB, and the Prosecutor General, apparently do not want this change to happen.

Meanwhile, in a Facebook post on Sunday Democratic Bulgaria co-chairman Hristo Ivanov too called for "finding a way of holding an extraordinary sitting of Parliament". Ivanov argued that the incumbent legislature "must remove the Protection Bureau from the authority of the Prosecutor General despite the fierce resistance to the move". "The issue is important because how the parties treat it will determine the strength of their presence in the next Parliament," Ivanov wrote. He noted that signatures were collected on Friday for holding the extraordinary meeting on Monday so as to ensure that the conclusive voting of the amendments regarding the Protection Bureau would not be foiled by the expected presidential decree dissolving the incumbent National Assembly.

Ivanov urged Miteva to find a way of calling the extraordinary sitting on Monday or Tuesday morning at the latest so that Parliament pass on second reading the amendments to the Act on Protection of Persons Threatened in Connection with Criminal Proceedings. ZH//