site.btaParliament in 2015: Reforms, Changes, Compromises and Elections

Parliament in 2015: Reforms, Changes, Compromises and Elections

Sofia, December 29 (Neli Zheleva and Ekaterina Panova of BTA) - Reforms, legislative changes, compromises and elections dominated the outgoing year for Parliament. The agenda of the legislature included changes in the Constitution, the government and the ruling majority, reforms in health care, in the social and eduction sector and the judiciary.

For the first time in its term, the coalition government of GERB and the Reformist Bloc (RB), supported by the Patriotic Front and ABV, faced no confidence vote in Parliament.

The ruling majority commenced reforms in some areas.

A brand new law was adopted for pre-school and school education. It allowed private educational establishments to claim government subsidies, made a change in the levels of primary and secondary education and introduced an educational qualification for the obtaining of a driving licence (only by driving students who  have finished 10th grade).

Legislative changes in health care split the package of services paid for by the public National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) into two parts: a primary and additional. Patients are entitled to immediate care from the primary package and these services will be for by the NHIF immediately and without caps, while the wait for an additional-package service may be up to two months. The changes in the health care legislation also increased the representatives of the State in the SUpervisory Board of the NHIF to six from four.

Changes in the Social Insurance Code increased the pensionable age to 60 years and ten months for women and 63 years and 10 months for men, and the contributory service requirement to 35 years and two months for women and 38 years and two months for men.

Much efforts went into the judicial reform.

Based on a reform package moved forward by Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov, the reform started with the adoption in early 2015 of an updated reform strategy and followed with a proposal for constitutional changes. Following what was dubbed "a historic compromise" in which the nationalist Ataka provided their support to ensure the adoption on first (out of three) reading of the revisions by a majority of 180 votes, the revisions were thinned down on a motion by ABV and subsequently passed by a majority in Parliament, prompting the resignation of Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov. In an aftershock, the Democrats for Strong Bulgaria of the RB withdrew its support for the government and went into opposition.

The revisions to the Constitution passed conclusively days before the Christmas break of the legislature.

They pave the way to the division of the Supreme Judicial Council - the body of top administrative authority in the judiciary - into two colleges, of judges and of prosecutors/investigators, with each making independently decisions concerning the respective professional communities.

The revisions also empowered the Inspectorate of the Supreme Judicial Council to carry out integrity and conflict-of-interest checks of judges, prosecutors and investigators; the accountability of the Prosecutor General was increased by a notch and the Supreme Bar Council was allowed to approach the Constitutional Court.

Twice in the outgoing year, Parliament was asked to vote government reshuffles. The first followed the resignation of Interior Minister Vesselin Vouchkov and lead to the appointment of Roumyana Buchvarova as his successor. The second was prompted by the resignation, shortly before Christmas, of Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov who was succeeded by Ekaterina Zaharieva, deputy prime minister in two caretaker governments appointed by President Rosen Plevneliev and hetherto chef de cabinet of the President.

Compromises and elections
 
The local elections in October 2015 preserved the status quo. GERB won the local elections in 21 regional  centres, the Reformist Bloc in three, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) retained only the southern town of Kurdzhali and the BSP did not win any.
             
The Left saw their participation in the local elections as a dramatic loss and scheduled a congress for April 2016.

MRF remained third in the political ranking.
             
The Reformers boasted the achievement of running in the elections as a solid political entity rather than as a fragmented Right wing.
               
The Patriotic Front and the two parties in it, IMRO and the National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria, ran separately and achieved, in their own assessment, an unsatisfactory outcome.
                
ABV boasted victory in smaller settlements with more than 150 municipal councilors elected.
                 
Bulgarian people also voted in a national referendum on the introduction of remote electronic voting, held two-in-one with the local vote. 76.45 per cent voted in favour of e-voting, 21.61 per cent voted against it and 1.94 per cent cast invalid votes. The final outcome is that the matter should be discussed by Parliament.
           
The outgoing year also brought a new national Ombudsman. Socialist Maya Manolova replaced Konstantin Penchev whose mandate expired. He, in turn, became a constitutional judge from the quota of the National Assembly.
           
After failing to do that for a whole three years, Parliament finally elected a new chief inspector with the Supreme Judicial Council. Teodora Tochkova got the job on 195 votes "for" and one "against". The mandate of the previous chief inspector, Ana Karaivanova, expired at the end of 2012.
            
The Bulgarian National Bank also has a new governor and deputy governors approved by the National Assembly in 2015. The GERB nominee for the governor office, Dimiter Radev, was voted in office after his predecessor, Ivan Iskrov, withdrew after 12 years at the helm of the central bank and after surviving even the outrageous  failure of Corporate Commercial Bank in 2014.
            
Parliament lifted the immunity of Ataka MPs and party leader Volen Siderov and fellow party member Desislav Choukolov on several motions of the Prosecutor General.
             
On the day before Christmas, MRF leader Lyutvi Mestan was ousted and expelled from the party at a surprise meeting of the MRF national leadership where he was not even invited. Three MPs from the MRF group chose to go with him and become independent deputies. Until MRF's national conference expected to be held in April 2016, the party and its parliamentary group will be led by MPs Roushen Riza, Mustafa Karadayi and Chetin Kazak.
          
A new anti-corruption bill and a large part of the legislative revisions which are part of the judicial reform remain for Parliament' agenda in the new year.