The Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the release of the Chairman of the Audit Chamber Tsvetan Tsvetkov. The decision comes after the complaint submitted by „We continue the change – Democratic Bulgaria“ on the first day of February, when GERB, DPS, BSP and „Bulgarian Rise“ voted for his release in the parliamentary hall. With today’s decision, both the principle of the rule of law and the independence of the Audit Chamber are protected.
„The release project lacked reasons, which were composed by the parliamentary tribune,“ declared Nikola Minchev and added that the reasons were also mutually contradictory.
„On the one hand, it was stated that Tsvetkov’s term of office has expired, but one of his deputies, whose term of office has also expired, was designated as the acting official. In the course of the debate, it was said that there was dissatisfaction with the work of the Audit Office on some audits. However, from whom – it was not clear. The political self-dealing that happened with the chairman of the Audit Chamber was unanimously punished by the Constitutional Court,“ says Minchev.
„The Audit Chamber is one of the important control bodies in Bulgaria, which reports to the National Assembly. During the time of Mr. Tsvetan Tsvetkov, some of the most serious audits were carried out in recent years – the reports on highways and dams came out from there. After these huge inspections with critical results, the chairman was replaced in an illegal way,“ said MP Martin Dimitrov.
People’s representative from „We continue the change – Democratic Bulgaria“ Vasil Pandov added that the release of the chairman of the Audit Chamber is a bad signal to Bulgaria’s European partners, because the Audit Chamber has its commitments under EU law and to the European Audit Office.
„When we have a supreme audit authority that is presumptively independent, we become an unreliable partner, as we bring the political scandal not only to the level of parliament, but also to the supranational level. Such bad political decisions create problems in the activity of this body,“ he commented.
