site.btaCabinet-Proposed Whistleblower Protection Act Revisions Pass on First Reading

Bulgaria’s Parliament on Thursday voted, 164-38 with one abstention, to pass on first reading a Government-proposed Bill to Amend and Supplement the Act on Protection of Persons Submitting Alerts or Publicly Disclosing Information about Violations.

Another bill on the same subject matter, moved by Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), was rejected by the majority.

The draft legislation that was approved broadens the scope and enhances the protection of whistleblowers and achieves full conformity with Directive (EU) 2019/1937 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 October 2019 on the protection of persons who report breaches of Union law. The revised version limits the exclusion from protection under the Act to the confidentiality of legal professional privilege to the protection of confidentiality of communications between lawyers and their clients (‘legal professional privilege’). So far the exclusion applied to members of the legal profession. Lawyers, notaries, enforcement agents and jurisconsults, who must comply with the duty of professional secrecy, will thus be protected when submitting alerts about violations of Bulgarian or EU law that threaten or harm the public interest.

According to another proposed amendment, in addition to factory and office workers, service providers, too, will be able to benefit from the provisions of the law.

As an alternative to documenting oral reports in a transcript, they can now be archived by making a recording in a durable and retrievable form.

The Final Provisions of the Bill amend the Local Self-Government and Local Administration Act, providing for the election by the Municipal Council, from among its members, of a standing ethics committee which will deal with alerts about unethical conduct, about a conflict of interest or about corruption of municipal councillors and other reports of breaches of the Code of Ethics and, accordingly, will account for, and make public information about, the number of such alerts and the response.

Justice Minister Georgi Georgiev said during the debate that, for the first time, the regulation of this subject matter is streamlined to the fullest extent. Reacting to a motion by Vazrazhdane, he pointed out that a total of 110 alerts were submitted last year. “It would be completely untrue to claim that protection mechanisms did not exist until the adoption of these revisions,” the Minister argued.

Another bill revising the same law, moved by Kiril Petkov MP of CC-DB, was defeated in a vote of 72 in favour, 61 against, and 68 abstentions. That draft proposed the introduction of protection of persons who have obtained information about a violation in the course of a recruitment process and the extension of the relevant protection after the termination of the employment or civil-service relationship. That bill further made the institution of proceedings possible even after the lapse of the present time limit of two years after the commission of the violation. Another proposal of CC-DB was to give whistleblowers confirmation of receipt of their alert within seven days and to regulate the prompt forwarding of the information to the respective institutions competent to handle it.

In his speech, Stoyu Stoev MP of CC-DB said that this is the fifth legislative act on the subject matter during the last three years and that he hopes that the National Assembly will overcome its fears and will transpose the acquis. The CC-DB centres on the proposal to scrap the two-year time bar as unjustified.

Nikolay Bratovanov MP of GERB-UDF commented that the purpose of the municipal ethics committees is to strengthen grassroots control over municipal councillors and ensure an effective accountability mechanism.

Ivan Minev MP of GERB-UDF argued that local government is bound for the first time to comply with a code of ethics.

Tsveta Rangelova MP of Vazrazhdane emphasized that her parliamentary group opposes the making of new laws which replicate the content and spirit of good ones which already exist.

According to Petar Petrov MP of Vazrazhdane, no procedure can guarantee that an alert will be followed up. Regarding the ethics committees at the municipal councils, he noted that the bill does not specify the principle on which they will be formed. In his opinion, corrupt practices will be covered up in this way.

Yavor Haytov MP of Democracy, Rights and Freedoms (DRF) said that his parliamentary group will back both bills. He argued that whistleblowers need adequate protection against intimidation and other harassment.

Atanas Slavov MP of CC-DB insisted on the importance of having a real majority for the adoption of the legislative provisions that are right for the state.