Bulgarian President Appeals Amendments to CPC and the Figure of "Special Prosecutor" to the Constitutional Court

Just a day after the State Gazette published a Law supplementing the Criminal Procedure Code, which created a figure of a special prosecutor entitled to investigate the Prosecutor General or his deputy, President Rumen Radev referred the matter to the Constitutional Court asking for basic texts of the law to be declared unconstitutional, the press secretary of the head of state announced.

The president presented his motives for the unconstitutionality of the controversial provisions, as the same arguments were also put forward by him on February 10 this year, when he vetoed the CPC Supplemental Bill.

Despite the negative opinions of the Supreme Judicial Council, the prosecutor's office, experts and lawyers in both Bulgaria and European institutions, as well as the veto of President Rumen Radev, the majority MPs in parliament voted and re-adopted the amendments to the Criminal Procedure Code.

During the referral to the Constitutional Court, the head of state Rumen Radev identified several main problems, which he sees in the changes in the Criminal Procedure Code.

In his statement to the Constitutional Court, the head of state called the new figure of a prosecutor a "special prosecutor". He points out that the texts do not indicate his exact place in the prosecution system.

"It is worth noting that he is explicitly placed outside the hierarchical system of leadership and control established in the prosecutor's office," the president said.

In the opinion of the President, the creation of the figure of a special prosecutor for the investigation against the Prosecutor General or his deputy and the transfer of jurisdiction in these cases entirely to the Specialized Criminal Court undermine fundamental constitutional...