Bulgarian Parliament Refers State Gazette Scandal to Court

The Bulgarian National Assembly was shaken this spring by an amendment that mysteriously appeared in the State Gazette in a version significally different from the one voted in plenary. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency.

The Bulgarian Parliament adopted Thursday the report of an ad hoc committee set up to investigate circumstances under which an amendment to the Law on Drugs that was not voted in plenary was published in Bulgaria's official State Gazette.

116 MPs voted in favor of the resolution, with none against and two abstaining. The act recommends that the case be referred to the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office.

The two MPs involved in the scandal – Plamen Tsekov and Svetlin Tanchev from the ruling GERB party – have already resigned from their positions in parliamentary committees.

MP Maya Manolova from the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party alleged that the quick resolution of the issue is actually an “umbrella” extended by GERB to cover up those who were actually at the bottom of the misdeed and to punish only minor offenders.

Hristo Biserov from the other main opposition party, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, claimed that the event is a first in Bulgarian parliamentary practice – the first breach of parliamentary rules that also constitutes a crime.

MPs from GERB dismissed the opposition attacks, saying that similar quips would have been present no matter what the results of the investigation were. GERB's Petar Petrov explained off the Socialists' statements as just a desperate attempt to regain dwindling public support.

The scandal burst when in March Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov, who is the one to promulgate Bulgarian laws, alerted the National Assembly that an correction to the Law on Drug Substances has appeared in the State Gazette without the President's signature or a vote on the part of Parliament.

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