site.btaConstitutional Court to Consider on Its Merits Ex-Prosecutor General's Application Regarding Constitutionality of Recent Amendments to Code of Criminal Procedure, Judiciary Act

The Constitutional Court Tuesday said it has admitted for consideration on its merits an application by former Prosecutor General Ivan Geshev challenging the constitutionality of recent amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Judicial Power Act relating to refusal to open a pre-trial proceeding, the mechanism for investigating the Prosecutor General and the election of member to the Supreme Judicial Council.

The decision was made unanimously by 10 votes. Krassimir Vlahov is reporting judge.

Geshev took the matter to the court on June 5 while he was still Prosecutor General.

He argued that introducing court oversight for prosecutors' refusals to open pre-trial proceedings violates the constitutional role of the court to be an independent arbiter and ensure equality of the sides in the legal process. Geshev also argued that the revisions which introduce a mechanism for investigation of the Prosecutor General are at odds with recommendations by the Venice Commission, key principles of the Constitution and the practice of the Constitutional Court which have already pronounced twice on the accountability of the top prosecutor.

Geshev further argues that the revisions in the Judicial Power Act set in place a different procedure for electing and discharging the Presidents of the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court, on the one hand (by a majority of 17 votes in the Supreme Judicial Council plenum), and the Prosecutor General (by 13 votes in the plenum). The former Prosecutor General argues that such inequality is inadmissible in a country with rule of law.

It was this revision which paved the way for Geshev's replacement by the Supreme Judicial Council on June 12.

Some days ago Justice Minister Atanas Slavov said that the Supreme Judicial Council has to suspend a procedure it had started, for the election of a new Prosecutor General until the Constitutional Court rules on Geshev's application. On Tuesday, he said in a Facebook post that he would motion the Supreme Judicial Council to do that at its next sitting.