The Output of the National Assembly in the Year Preceding the Accession

Kamelia Kasabova, Deputy President of the 40th National Assembly
January 3, 2007

Mrs. Kasabova, in your opinion which were the pivotal changes made in the Bulgarian legislation in 2006, which synchronize it with the European law?
In the huge work done by parliament in the past year it is very hard to single out the most important since more than 200 legislative acts were passed, of which 115 related to eurointegration. We have 31 entirely new laws. The National Assembly worked at full capacity. Particularly momentous are the novel Administrative Procedure Code, which established the administrative courts, and the acts aimed at improvement of the financial system, the tax policy, the consumer services.

You were among the main participants in the process of amending the Bulgarian Constitution. What is still to come, what changes should we expect?
I worked in the first two amendments, which were, I would say, of historical significance, as they allowed Bulgaria to sign the Accession Treaty in April 2005. At the moment we are working on the fourth amendment to the Constitution, which will probably become a fact of our legal reality in March. A great contribution of the fourth constitutional amendment is the financial decentralization of the municipalities, which envisages that they will be able to set the size of their local taxes. There are texts concerning the judiciary, the control the National Assembly will exercise over the institutions it establishes; current practice shows that the bodies elected by the National Assembly cut their navel string to parliament the moment they are elected and henceforth are not subject to any control.

The most controversial topic in the fourth amendment is the so-called inspectorate, which is in a way a legal oddity unknown to the European systems, which stands quite strangely in the architectonics of the Bulgarian Constitution. There are many voices “for” and many “against” this inspectorate; everyone is eager to outline it without anyone having seen it in practice and in the absence of laconic constitutional norms describing distinctly its features. It is a fact, however, that the judiciary is ailing and if this inspectorate will be the aspirin to cure the headache of the judicial system we will take it, we will select the optimal model and if thereby we will meet the judiciary criteria required by our European partners – the inspectorate will become a fact.

What changes should be expected in the work of the National Assembly in the new conditions, as parliament of an EU Member State? Will your work change in any way?
My work, in particular, no. But the work of the Bulgarian parliament will change very substantially as it will function in a new European environment. This change has two dimensions: on the one hand, this is due to the precedence and direct effect of the European law, which means the laws adopted in Brussels will alter the Bulgarian legal order and will be built up over the Bulgarian laws. At the same time, it means implementation of the transfer of legislative sovereignty, which we adopted with the second amendment to the Constitution, namely that part of the legislative activity will be carried out in Brussels. In this sense, the work of the National Assembly will change substantially; it will concentrate to a greater extent in the committees and primarily in the committee on European affairs, which will be of dominant importance. The committees will be working out the standpoints on the legislative and other acts to be adopted in the European institutions, stands which will be binding on the executive power as positions that it must defend in the European institutions. When we were working on the second amendment to the Constitution this was the most debated text: how to have, one the one hand, parliament exercising control over the national positions which will be defended in the European institutions, and at the same time our representatives there to have the freedom to react and be adequate to the specific environment. It is still to be seen how this constitutional amendment and the further work of the National Assembly will be inscribed in this new legal framework.

I also think the volume of legislative work will diminish to a great extent and we will have to focus on the quality of the legislative acts and not so much on their quantity, as the quantity is already achieved.
Furthermore, a very serious change in the rules of the National Assembly is under preparation, including a constitutional norm which will be amended and will enable the National Assembly to sit without a required quorum of 120 deputies all the time. Quorum will be required only for the opening of plenary sessions and for voting acts. With this change I think the sore problem of the institution will be overcome – the voting with other people’s cards, the accusation that, you see, the hall is empty. This is in fact not a constitutional amendment aimed at a deliberate facilitation of the work of the deputies, it is also a European synchronization because such is the order in all EU member states. I don’t know if we will ever become so mature as to adapt our work on the analogy of the British Parliament, where out of a total of over 500 MPs 40 are required to open a session and this is normal.

What are the priorities at the outset of the work of the National Assembly in 2007? Which are the first bills tabled for discussion by the Bulgarian deputies?
There are several harmonization laws left, concerning the drugs in humanitarian medicine, electronic communications, but of the priorities in the next few months I would point out in the first place the fourth amendment to the Constitution. Then, very important are the laws on election of Bulgarian EP members. The law on local elections, which somehow is not in the focus of attention right now, is very topical as it is a commitment taken during the negotiation process and it should reflect the constitutional amendment allowing European citizens to run and vote in local elections. The Bulgarian constitutional amendment, and respectively the law on local elections, should reflect the European directive, where the directive permits each member state to decide whether to reserve the mayor’s office in local elections for citizens of the member state or to make it available to European citizens. Practice shows that most European states have chosen the model of reserving the mayor’s office for their own citizens, such will be the Bulgarian model too.