site.btaConstitutional Court Opens Case at Opposition MPs' Request over Election of Its Judges on Parliament's Quota

The Constitutional Court has opened a case at the request of MPs of Vazrazdhane, There Is Such a People (TISP) and BSP for Bulgaria over the election of constitutional judges on Parliament's quota. It transpires from the Court's website that the rapporteur on the case is judge Konstantin Penchev, who is also to report on the case opened after President Rumen Radev challenged the judges' elections by the National Assembly on January 19.

Earlier on Wednesday, the MPs of the three opposition groups jointly challenged the constitutionality of the parliamentary decisions on the appointment of Desislava Atanasova (MP of GERB-UDF) and Borislav Belazelkov (former Supreme Court of Cassation judge nominated by Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria) as Constitutional Court judges on the legislature's quota. According to the opposition, these two decisions go against the Constitution and the principles it is based on.

According to President Radev, the principles of openness, transparency, publicity and justification that the National Assembly is bound to observe when electing members of bodies of whom all or part are elected by it, have been breached and "cannot be supplanted by pro forma debates and procedures seeking to legitimate an advance understanding among the ruling political forces".