New Constitutional Amendment Bill to Be Submitted on Friday, Supported by 180 MPs

Sofia, July 23 (BTA) - All parliamentary forces except for
BSP-Left Bulgaria and Ataka will stand behind a new bill to
amend the Constitution for the purposes of the judicial reform.
The new bill is expected to be submitted to the National
Assembly on Friday, signed by 180 lawmakers out of a total of
240. This transpired after Prime Minister Boyko Borissov met
with the leaders of the parliamentary parties on Thursday.

The new bill will include three main points on which there is
general consensus: dividing the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC)
into a college of prosecutors and a college of judges;
introducing direct election of SJC members by the judiciary; and
 authorizing the SJC Inspectorate to check the assets of
judicial officers and monitor them for possible conflicts of
interest, Reformist Bloc Co-Floor Leader Radan Kanev explained.

According to Kanev, the new bill will also include an item about
 entitling the Supreme Bar Council to file limited-format alerts
 to the Constitutional Court.

Regarding the controversial issues about the powers of the two
SJC colleges in relation to the powers of the SJC Plenum and
about the ratios between the parliamentary quota and the
judiciary quota for the members of the two colleges, the new
bill will keep the provisions proposed in the original bill on
the assumption that the Constitutional Court will be approached
on both issues and then the second-reading vote on the bill will
 take into account the judgment of the Constitutional Court.

Kanev said: "This is not a pretence at judicial reform, but
rather a thoroughgoing, full-fledged transformation of SJC,
which was the original idea behind the constitutional changes."

Prime Minister Boyko Borissov thanked the leaders of all
parliamentary forces who took part in the meeting: GERB, the
Reformist Bloc, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), the
Patriotic Front, ABV, and the Bulgarian Democratic Centre.

MRF Chairman Lyutvi Mestan said: "I think the parties in the
National Assembly showed that they are willing to put the
national interests above partisan selfishness. We made a tough
decision, but it is a correct decision."