Bulgaria's National Assembly on Monday passed conclusively amendments to the Protection Against Domestic Violence Act. The amending bill was moved by Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and GERB-UDF and was adopted on first and second reading by Parliament at an extraordinary plenary sitting.
The revisions extend the range of persons falling within the scope of the law to include such who are in an intimate partner relationship of a duration exceeding 60 days.
The MPs interrupted their summer recess for this urgent business after a case of heinous brutality against a young woman in Stara Zagora (Southeastern Bulgaria), classified as trivial bodily injury, caused a nationwide outcry.
The final version of "intimate partner relationship" as adopted reads: "a totality of voluntary, long-standing, personal, intimate and sexual relations between two natural persons of the male and female sex, regardless of whether they share the same household and whose arisal, content and termination are not subject to legal regulation by another law."
Nadezhda Yordanova MP of CC-DB initially moved that "intimate relationship" be defined as "relations between two persons". During the debate, this definition drew criticism from MPs of various parliamentary groups. BSP for Bulgaria moved that the definition specify that the intimate partners are two natural persons of the male and female sex, which was ultimately adopted.
/КК/
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