ABV Party Disapproves of Constitutional Amendments Proposed by Justice Minister

Veliko Turnovo, Northern Bulgaria, July 10 (BTA) - ABV party
leader Georgi Purvanov said on Friday that the constitutional
amendments proposed by Justice Minister Hristo Ivanov cannot be
equated with a genuine judicial reform. "A real, efficient
judicial reform can be accomplished by amending the Judicial
System Act," Purvanov told a BTA-hosted news conference in
Veliko Turnovo.

He believes that Ivanov's amendments will delay the reform and
will not lead to a quick and efficient judicial process. Such
constitutional changes have been made before and have proven
useless, he said. "These changes in the Constitution are not
worth the effort, because if we want to amend the Constitution,
this implies an entirely new interpretation," Purvanov argued.

The people are dissatisfied not just with the judicial system,
but also with the political system, so if any changes are to be
made, they must involve changing the mechanisms for funding and
registering political parties, he said.

There are several points in the referendum proposal by the GERB
party which are unacceptable to ABV, Purvanov said. One of them
is the idea of conducting referendums simultaneously with
political elections, and another one concerns the referendum
validity criteria. The validity of a referendum should not
depend on the voter turnout during national or European
elections, as suggested by GERB, he said.