site.btaAs Parliament Debates Constitutional Changes, Two Opposition Parties Threaten to Challenge Their Constitutionality

As the legislature debated Tuesday changes in the Constitution, the opposition parties There Is Such a People (TISP) and Vazrazhdane threatened to challenge their constitutionality. The plan to take the matter to the Constitutional Court was first announced by Vazrazhdane and then TISP said they would be joining in. 

The changes were proposed by GERB-UDF, Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms on July 28. If adopted, they will reform the judicial system, limit some of the president's powers, and democratize the election of members of regulatory and control authorities.

The revisions are the only item on Parliament's Tuesday agenda.

The MPs of the two parties left the debating chamber where the constitutional revisions were voted on second out of three readings later in the day.  

Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov said that "we are going to witness a travesty of law and we are not going to participate in legitimizing it".

TISP floor leader Toshko Yordanov said that this day was "one of the most disgraceful in Bulgarian history" because the Constitution is being amended out of a wish to cling to power even after the power-holders are brought down, via the opportunity provided for in the constitutional revisions to control the caretaker government.

He also said that the opposition is left powerless in the way this Parliament operates, "and things will stay this way for as long as Bulgarian people sit and watch all this on TV".

Under the Constitution and according to the procedural rules for amending it, the bill of amendment should be discussed and adopted by three votes on different days. It is considered approved on first reading if it is supported by three-quarters of all MPs.

On December 11, the Constitutional Court rejected an application by MPs of Vazrazhdane and TISP for a binding interpretation of a constitutional provision regarding the procedure for amending the Constitution.

"There is no concern about the amendments being appealed in the Constitutional Court," Hristo Ivanov of Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria said later on Wednesday. He was speaking to journalists after the MPs approved the constitutional amendments on second reading. "The rest displayed helplessness," he added, referring to the Vazrazhdane and TISP MPs who left the debating chamber and did not take part in the vote. "It is unfortunate, but that is all they can do," Ivanov noted.