President Rumen Radev filed an appeal to the Constitutional Court with a request to declare unconstitutional the decision of the Bulgarian Parliament to form a temporary commission in order to discuss and amend the draft for a new constitution of the governing party GERB.
The commission was set up on October 2nd by GERB, the “Patriotic” alliance, Volya and some independent lawmakers, while the other parties announced they would not participate, as they declared it as “gaining time” trick to keep the governing coalition in power. The commission is intended to work for two months, which means until December 2nd, but it is entitled only to hold discussions.
The key request of the President is that any subsequent changes or deliberations in an already submitted draft of a new constitution could be made only by the Grand National Assembly, which is the only body that can adopt it by the present Constitution. The current National Assembly has the right to discuss only whether the Grand National Assembly should be convened to adopt the draft or not. According to Radev such decision exceeds the constitutional competence of the National Assembly and violates the principle of the rule of law.