site.btaPresident Vetoes Amendments to Code of Civil Procedure

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev has vetoed amendments to the Code of Civil Procedure passed by the National Assembly on September 11, the head of State's Press Secretariat said on Friday.

The revisions, enacted by the Transitional and Final Provisions to an Act to Amend and Supplement The Bar Act, divested the court of the power to set the fees of ad hoc representatives and transferred that power to the local bar associations, the press release specified. 

Radev argues that this "blatantly contradicts EU law which prohibits the associations of providers of certain services from setting their prices on their own." The President insists that the legislature should reconsider particular provisions that give rise to an unwarranted breach of the principles of fair trial within a reasonable time and citizens' constitutional right to defence. 
 
According to other vetoed provisions, if the lawyer's fees paid by a party are excessively high having regard to the actual legal and factual complexity of the case, the interest affected and the conditions under which legal assistance and defence have been ordered and provided, the court may award a lower amount of the fees in respect of this part only if the opposite party has lodged an objection as to excess, acting under the criteria established in an ordinance under The Bar Act. 

The amendments were initiated by the Supreme Bar Council after the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on January 25, 2024 that the ordinance fixing minimum amounts of lawyers' fees is not binding on the court when awarding such costs.