Reference period: 1 January 1995 - 30 June 1995

Statistical data Number of decisions: 8

Important decisions:

Identification: BUL-95-1-001
a) Bulgaria / b) Constitutional Court / с) / d) 13.04.1995 / e) 2/95 / f) / g) Darzhaven Vestnik (State Gazette) no. 39 of 28 April 1995 / h).

Keywords of the systematic thesaurus:
Constitutional justice - Types of litigation - Electoral disputes - Parliamentary elections.
 Institutions - Legislative bodies - Review of validity of elections.

Keywords of the alphabetical index: Nationality, double / Parliament, members, incom-patibilities.

Headnotes:
A candidate for member of Parliament is non eligible if at the time of registration as candidate he/she has double (Bulgarian and foreign) citizenship.

Summary:
A motion was brought by the Prosecutor General to establish the non-eligibility and to proclaim void the mandate of a member of Parliament on the grounds that his election violated Article 65.1 of the Constitution and Article 3.1 of the Election Law.
The Constitutional Court established that at the time of his registration as candidate, the elected member of Parliament had double (Bulgarian and foreign) citizenship.
For this reason, in accordance with Article 72.1.3 in conjunction with Article 65.1 of the Constitution, the Constitutional Court declared void the mandate of the elected member of Parliament.

Languages: Bulgarian.

Identification: BUL-95-1-002
a) Bulgaria / b) Constitutional Court / с) / d) 19.06.1995 / e) 8/95 / f) / g) Darzhaven Vestnik (State Gazette) no. 59 of 30 June 1995 / h).

Keywords of the systematic thesaurus:
Constitutional justice - Constitutional jurisdiction -Relations with other institutions - Legislative bodies. Fundamental rights - Civil and political rights - Right to property - Privatisation.

Keywords of the alphabetical index: Land property.

Headnotes:
In regulating the purchase of agricultural land and its restitution/compensation, the Parliament has to respect the constitutional right to property.

Summary:
A claim was submitted by 51 MPs from the opposition faction in Parliament contesting the unconstitutional nature of certain provisions of the Law on the Amend-ment of the Law on Agricultural Land Ownership and Use passed by the 37th National Assembly on 10 May 1995. The following provisions were contested:
A land owner is obliged to offer his agricultural land first to the municipality and then to the government before he is free to choose a buyer.
There shall be no agricultural land restitution if a piece of land falls into the zoning plan of the community and if there are buildings on this land, even if these have been constructed without a permit and regardless of whether construction is still under way or the title is legitimate.
Land shall be restituted within real borders where such borders exist or can be surveyed, the restriction being that the survey shall be based on the land register or land consolidation plans only.
For land with buildings or other improvements on it, owners shall get land of equivalent quality in com-pensation only if the compensation due represents more than two thousand square meters.
Members of a co-operative or partners in a partnership shall be free to demand that their adjacent lands are pooled and that seisin is collective.
Citizens shall be free to use land only pursuant to statutory acts of the Presidency of the National Assembly, the State Council or the Council of Ministers and can acquire ownership on agricultural land only in certain statutory ways.
Dismissed members of the liquidation councils shall not be entitled to compensation under the Labour Code, even if they had a proven contract of employment.
In view of the citizens' Constitution-sanctioned prin-ciples and rights to private property, to free and equal enterprise and other rights, the Constitutional Court ruled the above provisions to be anticonstitutional. Some other claims of the Members of Parliament were dismissed as not disclosing any contravention of constitutional provisions.

Languages: Bulgarian.