site.btaPresident Radev Discusses Need of Constitutional Amendments with Legal Council, Academics

December 17 (BTA) - Bulgarian President Rumen Radev
Tuesday met with his Legal Council and members of the academic
community to discuss the need of amending the Constitution.

"Does the Constitution provide sufficient safeguard mechanisms
against the trampling of the separation of powers and against
authoritarian arbitrariness? Does a conflicting and incorrect
interpretation of the Constitution present a systemic problem
leading to an acute deficit of fairness in our society?" the
President asked in his opening remarks, quoted by his Press
Secretariat.

Radev argued that the Constitution cannot be handled frivolously
 and that the debate should focus on whether any constitutional
revisions should be considered at all and, if they should, for
what reason and within what scope.

The most pressing issue on which the President expects to hear
the discussants' opinion is a bill amending the Criminal
Procedure Code and the Judicial System Act, proposed by the
Council of Ministers.

Tuesday's preparatory meeting marked the start of a broad public
 discussion, initiated by the head of State, on the
constitutional model of the Bulgarian prosecution within the
judiciary. The initiative was prompted by a recent controversy
over the election of a new prosecutor general. RI/LG

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