Bulgarian Constitution Research Articles

Do the regulations of the Electoral Code contradict with the Bulgarian Constitution as they provide for calculating “ex-lege” the vote of the party ballots without any preference in favor of the list leader

This article provides an analysis of the possible contradiction with the Constitution of the regulations in the Bulgarian Election Code creating a “privilege” for the list leaders in municipal elections as well as for MPs, who are entitled to, according to art. 278 (5) and art. 437 (5), along with their own preferential vote, also to receive the party ballots without any preference in them. Thus, it is obvious that there is a privileged position of these list leaders (while the other candidates are being discriminated against), which puts the aforementioned regulations of the Election Code in contradiction with art. 6 (2) of the Bulgarian Constitution – prohibition of privileges or discrimination, art. 10 – common, equal, direct voting right and art. 4 (1) – rule of law.

Особености на президентската реторика на Георги Първанов

Abstract: The article is an attempt to analyse the features of Georgi Parvanov’s presidential rhetoric. The presidential institution is presented in the context of civil society in Bulgaria as well as in connection with its regulation by the Bulgarian Constitution. The assumption is that the presidential rhetoric has a role on national and international levels. The metho¬dology includes discourse analysis, genres analysis and relations between rhetoric and society, person and roles in accordance with juridical norms and institutional requirements. The hypothesis is that every single presidents’ rhetoric has individualistic features, specific language and approach to present ideas, concepts and proposals. The rhetorical tools have been presented in speeches delivered during President Parvanov’s two man¬dates. The conclusion is that the presidential rhetoric has a connection with the character and experience of the President. Keywords: presidency, president, presidential rhetoric, society, factors, rules.

“Sex” versus “Gender” in the Jurisprudence of the Constitutional Court (How the Lack of Feminist Legal Studies in Bulgaria Led to Distortion of the Basic Category of “Gender” in the Legal Discourse?)

The Bulgarian Constitutional Court (CC) finds it necessary to differentiate between the concept “sex” and the concept “gender” in the Istanbul Convention within its preliminary constitutional control. As the second one is fundamental for the convention and the CC sees a problem with it, the CC concludes that the convention is in contradiction with the Bulgarian Constitution. Furthermore, in November 2021 in an interpretation decision the CC states that the under the Constitution the Bulgarian concept relates only to the meaning of “sex”, in its biological meaning. The way in which the CC operates with the terms “sex” and “gender” brings to the fore serious deficits in Bulgarian legal discourse resulting from the total lack of any feminist jurisprudence and the isolation from the contemporary debates on the gender-based inequalities and injustices.

A Critical Analysis of the Case-Law of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court Concerning Legislative Retroactivity

This study focuses on the concept of retroactive application of the new law within the meaning of established case-law of the Bulgarian Constitutional Court (the Court). It is emphasized upon the circumstance that the Bulgarian Constitution does not contain a general prohibition on attributing a retroactive effect of the law, in the absence of an explicit legislative guidance to the contrary (e. g. sec. 5, para 3 of the Constitution). The Court finds that the principle stating that laws should have prospective effect should be derived from the rule of law as a constitutional principle (art. 4, para 1 of the Constitution). The present study examines the cases in which the Court finds that the prohibition of the retroactive effect of the law is applicable in cases of retroactivity ‘stricto sensu’, where the trust in the stability of the legal system, legal certainty and acquired substantive rights are violated. According to the recent Court’s case-law the retroactive effect of the law is incompatible with the rule of law under specific conditions. The Court has adopted the view that according to the principle of protection of legitimate expectations, related to legal certainty, legislative changes that are sudden, unexpected and disproportionate to constitutional standards must not be allowed.

On the Issue of Bulgarian Public Holidays

The festive calendar is a reflection of the understandings, values and history of a people and country, a sign to the next generations about the difficulties and victories of the past, an example of what they should value, what they should not forget and what they should learn from. Until the establishment of the Third Bulgarian State, the holiday calendar of the Bulgarian society consisted primarily of religious and traditional holidays, which were preserved as a main component of the holiday calendar even after the Liberation. To them are added holidays related to the monarchical institution, as well as important historical events for the Bulgarian people. Generally, public holidays are the designated important dates and non-working days in our annual national calendar, and the national holiday should be the most important day among them. Such an occasion is undoubtedly the adoption of the first democratic Bulgarian Constitution on April 16, 1879, which should not just be a day in Bulgarian history, but a national holiday of the Bulgarian state. If we respect the Bulgarian institutions, statehood and independence, we must give due importance and respect to this date.

Новата алинея 16 на чл. 148 от Закона за устройство на територията

This paper focuses on paragraph 16 of Article 148 of the Bulgarian Spatial Development Act, as well as on the need of establishing this new regulation, the means for applying the street regulation provided in the detailed development plan, and the history of development laws in Bulgaria. It considers the new provision in terms of its meaning for better urban planning of settlements and construction of infrastructure necessary for the development of property, such as pavements, streetlights, landscaping, etc. The legal order established by the Bulgarian Constitution is guaranteed through meeting the requirement for public interest and the principle of proportionality under alienation of private property for the purpose of applying street regulation.

Republika Bułgarii: Decyzja numer 13 Sądu Konstytucyjnego Bułgarii z dnia 27 lipca 2018 r.

The decision of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Bulgaria concerns the incompatibility of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, drawn up on 11 May 2011 in Istanbul (hereinafter: the Istanbul Convention; the Convention) with the Constitution. The decision was issued on 27 July 2018. The Constitutional Court ruled that the Istanbul Convention, due to the provisions of Article 3(c) and Article 4 § 3, which are fundamental to its interpretation, is inconsistent with the Constitution due to the fact that the Convention does not allow for reservations to be made to these provisions. The reason for finding these provisions inconsistent with the Bulgarian Constitution was that the Convention recognized gender as a social construct, breaking down the unity of the socio-cultural dimension and the biologically determined gender. Both of these approaches are recognized by the Convention as autonomous, equal. The Constitutional Court indicated that at the axiological level, the Istanbul Convention includes aspects of gender ideology, which it defined as: “all ideas, beliefs and convictions according to which biologically determined sexual characteristics are irrelevant, and only gender self-identification is important”. The decision also indicated that the terms “gender” and “gender identity” used in the Convention do not have an unambiguous content, which violates the principle of the rule of law, and makes it impossible to determine what the state party to the Istanbul Convention is obliged to undertake. The ruling issued by the Constitutional Court ended the ongoing political dispute in Bulgaria regarding the ratification of the Istanbul Convention. The findings made by the Bulgarian Constitutional Court may also be important in the ongoing discussion in Poland, the subject of which is the termination of this international agreement.

The struggle for social constructivism in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract This paper argues that some of the difficulties faced by gender equality in postsocialist Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) can be explained by a missing paradigmatic shift to a constructivist understanding of gender. Arguably the most explicit rejection of a constructivist gender perspective was recently served by the Bulgarian Constitutional Court’s judgment, closely analyzed in the paper, which found certain provisions of the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (Istanbul Convention) incompatible with the Bulgarian Constitution. A constructivist analysis of gender-based violence is capable of offering a range of important contextual insights into gender-based violence, whereas those who only have biology in their analytical arsenal are more limited (for example, sexual predation is thus either an “innate” male sexual drive or a psychologically certifiable deviance). The Bulgarian Constitutional Court, as the paper shows, does not even get as far as debating the insights gender analysis offers, but rather rejects them wholesale merely because the term “gender” is used. While a constructivist, critical (feminist) understanding of gender is under attack globally, this paper shows that the assault is particularly grave in at least certain postsocialist CEE countries, where it is not a mere backlash against a reasonably well-established viewpoint, but a fierce ex ante rejection of a concept not yet understood or debated.

Cultural and Historical Heritage of Veliko Tarnovo from the Revival Period in the Historical Literature (Historiographic Essay)

The recent report presents an attempt for study of the numerous research works and published results, which are in circulation throughout the scientific and research circles in relevance with the cultural and historical heritage of Veliko Tarnovo city from Revival period. Following the already recognized periods in the development of historiography science, and also adding the last 20 years, part of the new 21st century, the scopes and aims of the scientific research, whose object are different in their characteristics cultural and historical values, are classified and summarized. Veliko Tarnovo has a city territory, distinctive with its concentration of memory and eminent personalities. It has a leading role in the national movement for liberation, in the fights for clerical independence, marks a rapid development in economic and commercial sphere, presents a field for creative architectural decisions, and the most important – this is the place, where the Constituent assembly has been pursued, confirming the first Bulgarian Constitution. All these prerequisites lay onto the base of essence and functions of the heritage for setting identities and memory, for sustainable cultural and economic development, for future education and national self-determination. Keywords: Cultural and Historical Heritage, Revival Period, City of Veliko Tarnovo, Historical Review, Periodization of Historiography Research, Memory, Sustainable Development

70 години Институт за икономически изследвания при Българската академия на науките

This anniversary coincides with the great jubilee of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - 150 years of the national spiritual center, which was established with the founding of the Bulgarian Literary Society in 1869. Together with the recognition a year later of the Bulgarian Exarchate, they are a worthy end to the national spiritual revival started by Paisii Hilendarski. The first president of the Bulgarian Literary Society prof. Marin Drinov and its members, prominent Bulgarian revivalists such as Dragan Tsankov and many others, participated in the First Great National Assembly in Tarnovo and in the writing of the first Bulgarian constitution, which established Bulgaria on the political map of Europe.

How well do constitutions travel across time and space?

This article discusses the question of possible constitutional models in constitutional history. More precisely, it deals with the influence of the Belgian Constitution of 1831 on the Bulgarian Constitution of 1879 which is also known as the Turnovo Constitution. In doing so, this article highlights the fact that one cannot speak of a Belgian model for the Bulgarian constitution. In other words, it seems that, in this case, the Belgian constitution did not travel so well in time and space. Nevertheless, this article also argues that such a discussion should also be included in the grand narrative of constitutional history in Europe in the 19th century. Finally, the claims and counter claims of a possible Belgian model became central during the inter-War period in the discussion about the desirability or not of the establishment of a liberal parliamentary regime in Bulgaria.

The Impact of Television in Bulgaria on the Electoral Process and Voting Behavior

After 45 years of communism, Bulgaria held its first democratic elections in May 1990, following an interparty coup that had ended the totalitarian rule in November 1989. A new Bulgarian Constitution was adopted in 1991. During the following years of transition to democracy, a normal political environment was gradually established. Among the major achievements during this period were that the country joined NATO in spring 2004 and entered the European Union in January 2007. During this period of transition to a democratic political system and marketplace economy, the processes of decentralization, liberalization, and privatization led to a completely new media landscape with strong social impact. The past two decades have witnessed five presidential (1992, 1996, 2001, 2006, and 2011), seven parliamentary (1990, 1991, 1994, 1997, 2001, 2005, and 2009), six local (1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, and 2011), and two European parliamentary elections (2007 and 2009) and the appointment of twelve governments in Bulgaria. The main objective of the proposed paper is to present the impact of media and, in particular, of television on the democratization developments in the country.

La sollecitudine ecclesiale di Monsignor Roncalli in Bulgaria (1925–1934). Studio storico-diplomatico alla luce delle nuove fonti archivistiche by Kiril Plamen Kartaloff (review)

La sollecitudine ecciesiale di Monsignor Roncalli in Bulgaria (1925-1934). Studio storico-diplomatico alla luce delle nuove fonti archivistiche. By Kiril Plamen Kartaloff. [Pontificio Comitato di Scienze Storiche: Atti e Documenti 36.] (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. 2014. Pp. 330. euro26,00. ISBN 978-88209-9214-9.)On March 28,1959, in his first Easter message to the world, Pope John XXIII looked back with some nostalgia over the events of his life had led to the papal office. He knew his ministry embraced all the peoples of the earth. Nevertheless, he confessed he felt a particularly warm tenderness for Bulgaria where he had spent the vigorous of his life, 1925 to 1934. He recalled with great affection that fine, hard-working, honest, and sincere people, and their beautiful capital, Sofia.1In this new book Kiril Plamen Kartaloff, a Bulgarian historian of Vatican diplomacy and correspondent of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, examines the ten years Angelo Roncalli spent as the papal representative in Orthodox Bulgaria, first as apostolic visitator (1925-31) and then as apostolic delegate (1931-34). Drawing on a wealth of documentary evidence only recently made available by the Vatican Secret Archives and the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, Kartaloff paints a very detailed picture of the complex problems Roncalli faced during his years in this Balkan kingdom.As the first papal representative in Bulgaria, Roncalli's initial mission was to oversee the reorganization of the Catholic Church there and to provide for the appointment of a bishop for the small Catholic community of the Byzantine rite. He would also help to establish the first Catholic seminary in the country and, when the time came, to find a suitable building to house the offices of the apostolic delegate.But the most difficult issues concerned the religiously diverse royal family. King Boris III (1894-1943) was baptized Catholic but became Orthodox upon accession to the throne because the Bulgarian constitution required it. He eventually was able to marry Princess Giovanna of Italy (1907-2000) at the basilica in Assisi with the permission of Pope Pius XI, on the conditions they would not remarry in an Orthodox ceremony and any children would be baptized and raised in the Catholic faith. But when the couple returned to Sofia, they attended1. Acta Apostolicae Sedis, 51 (1959), 244-45; The Pope Speaks, 5 (1959), 266. …

Ethnic minorities and political representation: The case of Bulgaria

AbstractThe political representation of minority groups in Bulgaria is analyzed from three perspectives. The first relates to political socialization: the mechanisms of minority political preference, and their materialization into political behavior, mostly during elections or through party membership. The second relates to political actors' conduct towards minorities: their attitudes toward minority identities and the significance of minority representation in their practice. The third perspective relates to the institutional framework that politically regulates minority status. This third perspective raises questions of minimum representation, and the legal formalization of minority political parties. Bulgarian ethnic politics is analyzed regarding both the ethnic factors in constructing the political scene and the political factors in structuring the ethnic model. The present article questions the applicability of the distinction between the 'politics of ideas' and the 'politics of identities' to Southeastern Europe in general, and to Bulgaria in particular. This theoretical question is addressed through two empirical comparative analyses: the similarities and divergences of the minority management model in the Bulgarian Constitution and the one applied in the political practice, and the differences between minority representation in Bulgaria and in neighboring countries such as Romania.

Bulgaria – Constitutional Gradualism: Adapting to EU Membership and Improving the Judiciary in the Bulgarian Constitution

Bulgaria – Constitutional Gradualism: Adapting to EU Membership and Improving the Judiciary in the Bulgarian Constitution

Bulgarian Criminal Procedure: The New Philosophy and Issues of Approximation

AbstractThe Bulgarian legal system forms part of the continental legal family and shares the main features of continental law. One of them is the codification of the main branches of law, among which is Criminal Procedure. In Bulgaria—as in all European countries—the Code of Criminal Procedure (CCP) is the main source of procedural rules of law. It was adopted in 1974 and entered into force in 1975; it was notable in its similarity to the CCP of the Soviet Union.Since 1975, it has been subjected to a vast number of amendments, most of which were introduced after 1990 as a consequence of radical changes in the Bulgarian political, economic, and legal system. Some of the amendments to CCP have brought the criminal justice system in line with the new 1991 Bulgarian Constitution and with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR)—ratified by the Republic of Bulgaria in 1992—as well as with other international acts and obligations, signed or undertaken by Bulgaria. Other amendments have provided for conceptually new institutions, unknown prior to this period in the development of Bulgarian procedural theory and practice.In short, Bulgarian criminal procedure has—since 1990—been undergoing a period of major reform, the most significant expression of which is to be seen in amendments to CCP, adopted in 1999. They represent what is called a "new philosophy" of criminal procedure. The basic elements thereof are:— instituting judicial control over investigative acts and coercive measures affecting fundamental human rights (detention, house arrest, committing a person to a psychiatric hospital for examination, prohibition against leaving the country, searches, seizures, etc.);— speeding up and simplifying the criminal process;— introducing more adversarial elements into judicial proceedings;— introducing police investigation as an alternative to preliminary investigations under which most criminal offenses would be investigated by police officers through more informal police investigative procedures than those of the more formal preliminary investigation.

History, Politics, and the Constitution: Ethnic Conflict and Constitutional Adjudication in Postcommunist Bulgaria

Infamously, the 1991 Bulgarian Constitution contains a provision banning political parties “formed on an ethnic basis.” In the early 1990s, the neo-communist Bulgarian Socialist Party invoked this provision when it asked the country's Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the political party of the beleaguered Turkish minority. In this article, Venelin I. Ganev analyzes the conflicting arguments presented in the course of the constitutional trial that ensued and shows how the justices’ anxieties about the possible effects of politicized ethnicity were interwoven into broader debates about the scope of the constitutional normative shift that marked the end of the communist era, about the relevance of historical memory to constitutional reasoning, and about the nature of democratic politics in a multiethnic society. Ganev also argues that the constitutional interpretation articulated by the Court has become an essential component of Bulgaria's emerging political order. More broadly, he illuminates the complexity of some of the major issues that frame the study of ethnopolitics in postcommunist eastern Europe: the varied dimensions of the “politics of remembrance“; the ambiguities of transitional justice; the dilemmas inherent in the construction of a rights-centered legality; and the challenges involved in establishing a forward-looking, pluralist system of governance.

Scrutiny: National Constitutions and EU Law: Adapting the 1991 Bulgarian Constitution in the Accession to the European Union

Scrutiny: National Constitutions and EU Law: Adapting the 1991 Bulgarian Constitution in the Accession to the European Union

Le principe constitutionnel de la responsabilité des ministres: le fond du problème et la mise en pratique

SUMMARY In this article, M. Manolova examines the provisions in the Bulgarian Constitution of 1879 which concern the responsibility of government ministers. It is shown how these provisions were unusually explicit in establishing that ministers were both individually and collectively responsible for their actions in government and in insisting that the power to institute proceedings lay exclusively with the parliament. The article compares the Bulgarian provisions with those in similar liberal constitutions of the period and notes the several instances down to 1919 when the provisions were implemented, in order to suggest that the principal of ministerial responsibility had a special importance in Bulgarian constitutional theory and practice.