Bulgaria Government Approaches Constitution Court on Amnesty Law

“They sign contracts for the purchase of aircraft and then the Minister whose signature is on the contract cannot be tried because he has committed reckless malfeasance”, PM Borisov said earlier. Photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian Government has approached the Constitutional Court on the content of article 1 of the Amnesty Law passed by the previous ruling coalition.

This has been announced Wednesday by the government press office after a session of the Council of Ministers.

The Act was passed in March 2009 and came into effect on April 22. It gives amnesty to all those who by July 1, 2008, were charged with reckless crimes punishable by up to 5 years behind bars.

The crimes include reckless malfeasance in office - the Penalty Code text that was the most applicable to charge people, who have used their office position to cover fraud with budget or European funds.

The government claims that such an amnesty is against the principles of the constitutional state, the equality of the citizens in the eye of the law, and that everyone accused of crime should face the justice system. It also says that the law is too abstract.

It says that amnesty is applied to everybody who has committed crimes of imprudence, and are normally punished by up to 5 year behind bars. Thus, many kind of crimes - against the property, financial, tax, and insurance systems, can be excused and not being prosecuted.

Another argument of the government is that this law is a sort of discrimination and violates the right of equal treatment of all citizens by the law.

 

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