site.btaSupreme Administrative Court Determines by Final Judgment that Results of November 2016 National Referendum Are Not Binding on Parliament

123 POLITICS -REFERENDUM - SUPREME ADMINISTRATIVE COURT amplified

Supreme Administrative Court Determines by
Final Judgment that Results of November 2016
National Referendum Are Not Binding on Parliament


Sofia, May 30 (BTA) - A five-judge panel of Bulgaria's Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) Tuesday upheld a February 2017 judgment of a three-judge panel of the same court that revoked a decision of the Central Election Commission setting the number of voters who cast ballots in the November 6, 2016 national referendum at 3,488,588, counting only the envelopes found in the ballot boxes.

The referendum proposed introduction of a majoritarian election system and slashing of the party subsidies. It was supported by some 2.5 million people but still the number was insufficient to make the propositions binding.

The judgment by the five-judge panel is final and unappealable.

The five-judge panel acted on a cassation appeal lodged by entertainer Slavi Trifonov and his team, who initiated the referendum, against the three-judge panel's decision that found that the results of the referendum were insufficient to compel Parliament to incorporate them into legislation.

In February, the SAC determined that, as a forensic mathematical statistical expert examination concluded, the right number of those who voted in the referendum was 3,489,080. This number was still 11,505 short of the minimum of 3,500,585 valid votes needed to make the referendum results binding on the National Assembly.

In a statement for the press, Slavi Trifonov says that the Supreme Administrative Court practically "justified a lie" and "exculpated a violation of the law". "Today we saw yet another proof that the court is not independent and is a servant to the political class," he writes.

Trifionov wrote that on the one side the five-member panel of the court confirmed the decision by the three-member panel of the same court that the Central Election Commission vitiated the final result of the referendum but on the other hand it failed to check the facts thoroughly. LN///