Bulgaria's Parliament Overrides Presidential Veto on Special Surveillance Devices Act

Bulgarian MPs voted to override the presidential veto over amendments to the Special Surveillance Devices Act.

The veto was overturned Friday with the total of 125 votes of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), the ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) and nationalist party Ataka.

The 69 MPs of center-right party GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) backed the veto.

On July 25, Bulgarian President Rosen Plevneliev returned for revision a set of amendments to the Special Surveillance Devices Act which had passed second reading in Parliament on July 11.

Plevneliev voiced reservations about a number of provisions, suggesting that they contradicted basic constitutional principles

He claimed that the powers of the newly created Bureau for Control over Special Surveillance Devices to request information and to issue binding instructions to the bodies in charge of authorizing, using, and deploying special surveillance equipment constituted inadmissible intervention into the work of the investigative bodies and the court.

He stressed that it was also unacceptable for MPs to exercise parliamentary control over court rulings and the inner conviction of magistrates and investigative bodies, adding that the independence of the judiciary was guaranteed by the Constitution.

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