site.btaPresident Vetoes Amendments to Defence and Armed Forces Act

Sofia, October 9 (BTA) - President Rumen Radev has returned recent Defence and Armed Forces Act amendments to the National Assembly for further consideration, the President's press secretariat reported on Monday.

The changes, adopted by the legislature on September 27, introduce higher and cumulatively applicable requirements for holders of the post of Permanent Secretary of Defence, which is the highest office in the Ministry of Defence. The President believes that the new requirements will do nothing to overcome the deficiencies in the existing legislation and create conditions for discrimination against some groups of people. The new standards are not a guarantee for higher professionalism, he argued.

The disputed amendments also envisage that persons who have acquired a senior military rank should be presented to the National Assembly's Defence Committee by the Minister of Defence or a deputy minister designated by him. In this way the legislators have added one more phase to the procedure for awarding senior military ranks, and this new phase will be controlled by a secondary body in the National Assembly. This is not supported by the Bulgarian Constitution and upsets the balance between the defence management bodies, Radev reasoned.

The Constitution says that the award of senior military ranks is a function of the President performed on a proposal by the Council of Ministers, he recalled. He finds it unnecessary to present the recipient of a senior military rank to the parliamentary Defence Committee after the rank is awarded. Besides, the law does not make it clear whether the same officer should be presented every time he receives a senior military rank. This vague provision whose meaning is difficult to discern will not strengthen the law-governed state, and at the same time it holds a risk of politicizing the senior command of the Armed Forces, Radev said.