At its sitting on June 23, 2026, the Constitutional Court ruled on Constitutional Case No. 19/2025. The case was initiated at the request of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria. Judge Pavlina Panova served as the reporting judge.
The Court declared unconstitutional the provisions of Article 251b, paragraph 2, first sentence, in the part reading “as well as for proceedings concerning violations of Article 15 of the Competition Protection Act”; Article 251c, paragraph 1, item 6; Article 251d, paragraph 2, in the part “or violations of Article 15 of the Competition Protection Act”; and Article 251d, paragraph 9, of the Electronic Communications Act (published in the State Gazette, No. 41 of 2007, last amended and supplemented in the State Gazette, No. 55 of 2026), as they conflict with Article 32, paragraph 1, and Article 34, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Constitution.
In ruling on the constitutionality of the challenged provisions, the Court does not depart from the understanding that access to traffic data (which is granted to the Commission for Protection of Competition under the challenged provisions) constitutes an interference with fundamental, constitutionally protected rights of citizens, such as the right to privacy (Article 32, paragraph 1) and the right to the inviolability of freedom and the secrecy of correspondence (Article 34, paragraph 1).
The provisions at issue in the proceedings before the Constitutional Court provide that the procedure for accessing traffic data may be used for the purposes of investigating and punishing violations under Article 15 of the Competition Protection Act (CPA). In this way, the legislature has not limited the use of traffic data solely to the prosecution of serious crimes (as required by Article 34, paragraph 2 of the Constitution), but has unjustifiably expanded this purpose, thereby exceeding the permissible legitimate purposes for the retention of and access to traffic data. Since the severity of the interference in this case is significant, given the nature, scope, and potential uses of traffic data, it is not constitutionally permissible to authorize such access for the purpose of investigating and punishing administrative violations.
The Constitutional Court holds that not every measure that may be useful for law enforcement purposes, even if necessary in a specific case, is constitutionally permissible in light of the negative consequences it entails. There is no constitutional basis for holding that the permissible restriction on the right to privacy and on the freedom and confidentiality of correspondence in cases of “serious crimes” can be extended to include acts constituting administrative violations, even if classified as “serious” under national law.
To the extent that the traffic data to which the CPC might have access could be used to establish the existence of communication between market participants, without disclosing the content of that communication, such data could serve only as circumstantial evidence, assessed in conjunction with other evidence during proceedings to investigate and sanction violations under Article 15 of the Competition Protection Act.
The limited practical effect of this measure does not justify either its broad scope or the high degree of interference with fundamental rights to which it leads, given the serious encroachment on citizens’ right to privacy and on the inviolability of the freedom and confidentiality of their correspondence.
All 12 constitutional judges participated in the sitting.
The Ruling was adopted unanimously.
The Ruling was signed with a concurring opinion by Judge Sonya Yankulova.
The full text of the Ruling: https://www.constcourt.bg/bg/act-10362