Not long ago a respected professor of law said that the Bulgarian member of parliament is in such a hurry to propose and adopt laws that it is as if he is climbing, and I quote, “like a wild goat up a hill” – Prof. Daniel Valchev.
A few days ago another respected professor of law, until recently caretaker Prime Minister, mentioned that Bulgaria is probably the world record holder for the speed of adoption and the volume of legislation reached – Prof. Ognyan Gerdzhikov
In my view, today’s legislator rushes to propose codes and laws like a puppy to its mother. The mother is the party daddy or mummy who issues an order from some headquarters, and it is clear who the puppies are: they run around and will trample each other to be the first to submit the bill – in this case the one amending and supplementing the Electoral Code – so as to please the daddy – mummy as much as possible.
That legal norms and principles of rule-making are violated does not matter.
That the rules are circumvented, that the rule of law goes into the bin and that democracy is being replaced is of no importance.
After many years of transition, above all in mentality and consciousness, Bulgarians have got used to giving way at pedestrian crossings. That is what the law says, and rules are there to be observed. Stopping at a red light is somewhat different, because it is linked to the human instinct of self-preservation, and running a red light can often cost the offender his life.
With their first rule-making actions, the new members of parliament not only do not stop at the pedestrian crossing but do not stop at a red light either.
Giving way at a pedestrian crossing can be likened to public consultations. Stopping at a red light can be presented as the requirement to carry out an ex-ante impact assessment – partial or full – which, if positive, gives the green light to the draft proposal.
For bills such as the one amending and supplementing the Electoral Code, from which radical changes to the national electoral system can be expected, which will obviously lead to a fundamental change in the political representation of the people, in the state and its governance as a whole, what is needed is not merely giving way at the pedestrian crossing and stopping at one traffic light, but passing through dozens of complex junctions with many traffic lights … This means holding public consultations lasting several months with the widest possible range of stakeholders, carrying out a series of nationally representative sociological surveys, and conducting analyses using the experts recognised as the best nationally in law, political science, electoral systems and others, etc., in order to find the most suitable regulatory option. All this is called a full ex-ante impact assessment.
Both public consultations and ex-ante impact assessment are mandatory under the Law on Normative Acts since the end of 2016:
Art. 18a. (New – SG No. 34 of 2016, in force from 4.11.2016) When a draft normative act is drafted, an ex-ante impact assessment shall be carried out and public consultations shall be held with citizens and legal entities …
The Bill amending and supplementing the Electoral Code submitted on 10.05.2017 by members of parliament from GERB meets none of the above requirements. No public consultation of at least 30 days has been held. The ex-ante impact assessment presented consists of 1 page, with one sentence for each of the 5 points of the National Assembly’s methodology for ex-ante impact assessment. For us this is an assessment that is an insult to the sensible and moderately intelligent part of Bulgarian society.
From all this it follows that the Speaker of the National Assembly should not assign the bill in question to the parliamentary committees, but return it to the submitters with instructions to remedy the irregularities identified. We very much hope that this will happen, although we have reason to doubt it, because we have a déjà vu from the 43rd National Assembly, when on the same occasion, in connection with a bill almost identical to the current one, we wrote letters to the then Speaker and wrote in the media as well, but to no avail…
We cannot understand, we are baffled, we cannot comprehend why members of parliament do not observe the laws they themselves adopt. Why the new National Assembly begins its work by grossly, openly and shamelessly circumventing the legal rules. No arguments about referendums, ombudsmen and showmen apply here. The will of the people is to introduce the majoritarian system – fine – but the people did not say that this should happen by violating all the new norms and principles of Bulgarian rule-making introduced with the amendments to the LNA at the end of 2016. They did not want it to happen hastily, thoughtlessly, without sufficient data and evidence and without scientific expertise.
There is a law, and it must be strictly observed by everyone, and by members of parliament above all.
The opposite means legislating of the kind where we race through the red light at breakneck speed and whatever happens, if we survive, it will be fine …