site.btaVazrazhdane to Challenge Constitutionality of Shift of Power to Appoint Counterintelligence Chief

Vazrazhdane will petition the Constitutional Court with a challenge of an Act to Amend the State Agency for National Security Act, which was gazetted on Tuesday and which provides that the chairperson of the Agency will be elected by the National Assembly, Deputy Floor Leader Petar Petrov told journalists in Parliament's lobby on Thursday.

Previously, the power to appoint the State Agency for National Security (SANS) chairperson was vested in the President of the Republic.

The MP specified that to be submitted, the petition has to be signed by 48 MPs, and 43 signatures have been collected so far, including members of the Velichie Parliamentary Group, and Continue the Change and MECh have been approached. Petrov added that support will be sought from all opposition parties and recalled that the amending bill was pushed through by GERB, BSP-United Left and There Is Such a People, as well as by MRF-New Beginning. 

"After the promulgation of the identical laws changing the election arrangements for the chairperson of the State Intelligence Agency and the State Agency Technical Operations, we will petition the Constitutional Court about their constitutionality," the Vazrazhdane lawmaker said. 

In his words, the rules of procedure for the election of a SANS chair also violate the principles of the Constitution and the role of the presidential institution as a balancing factor between the branches of government.

"The rules will not be put to the vote at the committee in charge of the subject-matter but at the Committee on Internal Security and Public Order, which is dominated by GERB and MRF-New Beginning," Petrov said.