Ruling No. 11 of 10 October 2024 on Constitutional Case No. 25/2024
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 384, paragraph 3 in conjunction with Article 253, item 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code, according to which a condition for the court to approve an agreement between the accused and the prosecution is the consent of the parties in the proceedings. The petitioner does not dispute the necessity of the consent of the other parties participating in the judicial proceedings in another capacity (private prosecutor, civil claimant, and civil defendant). He disputes only the necessity of the consent of the other co-accused, respectively of their defense counsels. A contradiction is alleged with the provisions of Article 31, paragraph 4; Article 56; Article 57, paragraph 2, second sentence; Article 58, paragraph 1, second sentence; Article 122; and Article 127, item 3 of the Constitution.
Summary of the Court’s Reasoning
According to the Constitutional Court, entering into and approving an agreement in the course of criminal proceedings is not a right of the accused, much less a fundamental one, because it is not a legally guaranteed opportunity for conduct of an empowered person that corresponds to a duty, in this case of a state authority. It is merely a legal possibility, a specific lawful interest of the accused within the framework of the criminal process, which implies that the prosecutor, on their own initiative or at the initiative of the defense counsel, participates in reaching an agreement (Article 381, paragraph 1 of the Criminal Procedure Code), and that the court approves the agreement if it does not contradict the law and morality (Article 382, paragraph 7 of the Criminal Procedure Code).
In this case, what is sought is not a declaration of unconstitutionality of the provision of Article 384, paragraph 3 or any part thereof, but of one of the elements of the generalizing expression used therein, “all parties,” i.e., the persons performing functions of prosecution or defense, exhaustively listed in Article 253 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The argument presented by the referring court, that if the Constitutional Court is competent to declare the provision unconstitutional in the part concerning the parties in the proceedings, it may also do so for an element of its content, cannot be accepted, unless we are in a situation of interpretation of the law in accordance with the Constitution, because otherwise it would not be an interpretation of the Constitution, but a normative interpretation of a law, which is the prerogative of the supreme courts.
The decisions of the Supreme Court of Cassation cited in the request point to a real legal problem - the existence of contradictory judicial practice regarding the approval of an agreement when not all of the accused in a criminal case have given their consent. This problem can be resolved through the exercise of the competence granted by the Constitution to the Supreme Court of Cassation to carry out supreme judicial supervision for the precise and uniform application of the laws by all courts (Article 124 of the Constitution), which is reflected and specified in Article 124, paragraph 1 of the Judicial System Act.
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 of the 16th panel of the Sofia City Court for establishing the unconstitutionality of Article 384, paragraph 3 in conjunction with Article 253, item 2 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
Председател: Павлина Панова