Ruling No. 10 of 1 October 2024 on Constitutional Case No. 22/2024
Referring Authority and Subject Matter of the Case
The case was initiated upon a request by a panel of the Sofia City Court. The subject of the case concerns the constitutionality of the provision of Article 29, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, according to which a judge or juror who, due to other circumstances, may be considered biased or directly or indirectly interested in the outcome of the case, cannot participate in the composition of the court. In the request, the arguments for unconstitutionality include the contradiction of the provision with Article 31, paragraph 3 (the accused shall be presumed innocent until proven otherwise by a final court judgment), Article 121, paragraph 1 (courts ensure equality and conditions for the adversarial process of the parties in judicial proceedings) and Article 127, item 3 (the prosecution shall uphold the charge in criminal cases of a general nature) of the Constitution.
Summary of the Court’s Reasoning
The provision of Article 150, paragraph 2 of the Constitution makes the possibility of such a referral conditional upon the existence of an inconsistency between a law and the Constitution established within the framework of specific judicial proceedings, and it is precisely the need to resolve this issue that entitles the judicial panel to approach the Constitutional Court. According to the interpretation consistently adopted in the Court’s case-law, a judicial panel may request a declaration of unconstitutionality only with respect to statutory provisions that have a direct bearing on the subject matter of the case before it (Ruling of 29 April 2014 on Constitutional Case No. 4/2014; Ruling of 17 September 2019 on Constitutional Case No. 9/2012). The justification that the question raised is relevant to the resolution of the specific case is a decisive requirement both for establishing the competence of the judicial panel to refer the matter to the Constitutional Court and for enabling the Constitutional Court itself to rule on it.
The referring court’s view on the applicable law is not binding on the Constitutional Court, which has the authority to make its own determination as to whether it is competent to rule on the request submitted to it. A decisive condition for admitting the request for consideration on the merits is whether the question raised falls within the Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction. The judicial panel sets out its arguments regarding the applicable law, providing arguments in connection with the impact of EU law on the interpretation of the contested provision.
The arguments presented by the petitioner are solely related to the need for the court to assess the absence or presence of bias as a ground for recusal within the meaning of Article 29, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, in exercising its adjudicatory powers granted to it in accordance with the Constitution. To the extent that the request raises questions within the competence of the general courts on the specific application of law in criminal cases, the Constitutional Court is not required to rule on it.
Grounds for the Ruling and Disposition
Pursuant to Article 13 of the Constitutional Court Act (the Constitutional Court determines on its own whether the question referred to it falls within its jurisdiction), Article 25, paragraph 1 (the case is examined in two phases - on the admissibility of the request and on the merits), and Article 26, paragraph 1 (where a request is inadmissible, it shall be dismissed by a reasoned ruling and the proceedings shall be terminated) of the Rules of Procedure of the Constitutional Court, the Constitutional Court dismisses the request for establishing the unconstitutionality of Article 29, paragraph 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Председател: Павлина Панова