The pressure on the Constitutional Court by the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Bulgaria is an unprecedented scandal

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) strongly condemns the unprecedented abuse of power and pressure by the Prosecutor’s Office against the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Bulgaria in connection with the constitutional case for the annulment of the elections for the 51st parliament.

On the evening of 10th of March, a statement by the president of the court on the Bulgarian National Television made it clear that some of the materials in the case were requested by the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office and the employees of the state-owned company Information Services handed them over to the state prosecution without any order or even permission from the Constitutional Court.

Earlier yesterday, 11 March, Violeta Marcheva, prosecutor at the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office, had requested the Constitutional Court to provide the Prosecutor’s Office with the materials and its reasons for the opening of Constitutional case No. 33/2024, as well as the reasons on the basis of which the experts in the case were selected—a request which the Constitutional Court flatly refused.

By its actions, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is sabotaging a constitutional case to establish electoral violations. As long as the materials are in the Prosecutor’s Office, the Constitutional Court could not objectively end with a final decision.

According to Article 66 of the Constitution, the procedure of declaring electoral violations is conducted by the Constitutional Court, not by the Prosecutor’s Office. Article 149(2) of the Constitution categorically prohibits the Constitutional Court’s powers from being taken away by law. It is for the Constitutional Court to oversee the entire process of ascertaining and declaring electoral offences once it is seized. No other institution can interfere in this process without its permission. And no constitutional case material can be handed over on any pretext to any other institution without the initiative and permission of the Constitutional Court. The fact that materials from the constitutional case have ended up in the Office of the Public Prosecutor, most likely at its initiative and under its pressure, is an unprecedented interference by that institution in the process established by the Constitution and the law.

The Constitutional Court is an institution outside the system of the three powers with special competence. Attempts to wrest jurisdiction from it utilizing procedural laws are not merely gross violations of the basic law. They grossly undermine the separation of powers. They are a blow against the rule of law, the like of which we have not witnessed in the period of transition of Bulgaria to democracy.

We insist on clarification of who, on whose initiative, under whose pressure and on whose orders, handed over to the Prosecutor’s Office materials from a pending constitutional case, and one directly linked to political interests. This calls for clarification as to whether there is—and if so, what—a political motive behind this action by the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office.

We demand the immediate resignation from the judiciary of the interim Chief Prosecutor Borislav Sarafov, the supervising prosecutor, the supervising prosecutor from the upper prosecutor’s office, and the head of the competent department (the Specialized or Pretrial Department) in the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office. We also demand that the Prosecutor’s Office immediately recover the materials of the pending constitutional case, by the orders of the Constitutional Court.

It is not the first time that the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office, headed by the Chief Prosecutor, has interpreted its powers extremely broadly, violating the principle of separation of powers. This also shows the need for urgent legislative changes. They must ensure that the Bulgarian Prosecutor’s Office is placed under scrutiny like any other authority so that neither it nor any other institution can interfere with the legally regulated activities of the Constitutional Court.