Ruling No. 8 of 26 September 2024 on Constitutional Case No. 17/2024
Referring Authority and Subject Matter of the Case
The case was initiated upon a request submitted by 55 Members of Parliament from the 49th National Assembly seeking a mandatory interpretation of Article 86, paragraph 1 (“The National Assembly shall adopt laws, resolutions […]”) in conjunction with Article 84, item 2 (“The National Assembly shall adopt the State budget and the report on its execution”), in conjunction with Article 106 (“The Council of Ministers shall direct the execution of the State budget […]”), in conjunction with Article 4, paragraph 1 (the principle of the rule of law) and Article 8 (the principle of the separation of powers) of the Constitution, and posing the following interpretative questions: “Is it permissible for the National Assembly, by means of a legal act of normative character - a decision - to restrict the exercise of the operational powers of the Minister of Finance by prohibiting him from carrying out expenditure operations under the consolidated fiscal programme or by ordering him to make expenditures for purposes determined by the National Assembly?” and “What are the legal consequences of the National Assembly adopting a resolution which, outside the financial framework of public finances established by the State Budget Act for the respective year, obliges executive authorities to incur certain expenditures or prohibits them from incurring expenditures charged to the State budget - are the executive authorities bound by such a resolution?” The request also seeks a declaration of unconstitutionality of item 1 of the Resolution on Taking Measures to Ensure the Financial Stability and Fiscal Liquidity of the Republic of Bulgaria, adopted by the 49th National Assembly on 4 April 2024. The request for establishing unconstitutionality is supported by the submitting Members of Parliament with allegations of violations of the principle of the rule of law (Article 4, paragraph 1 of the Constitution) and of the principle of the separation of powers under Article 8 of the Basic Law.
Summary of the Court’s Reasoning
A request for a mandatory interpretation may be admitted for examination on the merits only under certain conditions - the request must set out detailed reasons demonstrating the necessity that gives rise to it, namely ambiguities regarding the meaning and content of the constitutional provision and the existence of indications of its contradictory and inconsistent application.
The Court notes that the meaning of the constitutional provisions whose interpretation is sought, in the context of the two interpretative questions posed by the applicants, has already been clarified by Interpretative Decision No. 10 of 2021 on Constitutional Case No. 8/2021.
The Constitutional Court finds no grounds to depart from its established case law, according to which, “when no ambiguity exists or when there is no legal issue requiring resolution through interpretation” (Order No. 4 of 2007 on Constitutional Case No. 9/2007), it does not admit a request for mandatory interpretation under Article 149, paragraph 1, item 1 of the Constitution. For these reasons, the request for interpretation must be dismissed.
The request for establishing unconstitutionality must likewise be dismissed as inadmissible, since at the time of the Court’s ruling the effect of the challenged item 1 of the Resolution on Taking Measures to Ensure the Financial Stability and Fiscal Liquidity of the Republic of Bulgaria has been exhausted, which results in the disappearance of the subject matter of the case in that part.
Grounds for the Ruling and Disposition
Pursuant to Article 149, paragraph 1, item 2 of the Constitution (power to rule on requests for establishing the unconstitutionality of laws and other acts of the National Assembly) and Article 19 (the Court rules on the admissibility of the request) of the Constitutional Court Act, the Constitutional Court dismisses the request submitted by 55 Members of Parliament from the 49th National Assembly for a mandatory interpretation of Article 86, paragraph 1, in conjunction with Article 84, item 2, in conjunction with Article 106, in conjunction with Article 4, paragraph 1 and Article 8 of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria concerning the following questions: “Is it permissible for the National Assembly, by means of a legal act of normative character - a decision - to restrict the exercise of the operational powers of the Minister of Finance by prohibiting him from carrying out expenditure operations under the consolidated fiscal programme or by ordering him to make expenditures for purposes determined by the National Assembly?” and “What are the legal consequences of the National Assembly adopting a resolution which, outside the financial framework of public finances established by the State Budget Act for the respective year, obliges executive authorities to incur certain expenditures or prohibits them from incurring expenditures charged to the State budget - are the executive authorities bound by such a resolution?” The Court also dismisses the request for establishing the unconstitutionality of item 1 of the Resolution on Taking Measures to Ensure the Financial Stability and Fiscal Liquidity of the Republic of Bulgaria, adopted by the 49th National Assembly on 4 April 2024.
Председател: Павлина Панова