CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

Source: CODICES

Decision 12/1999 of 24 August 1999 (summary)

a) Bulgaria / b) Constitutional Court / c) / d) 24/08/1999 / e) 12/99 / f) / g) Darzhaven vestnik (Official Gazette), 77, 31/08/1999 / h) CODICES (French).

Headnotes:

It is not unconstitutional for district mayors in cities and deputy mayors in municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants to be elected by the municipal council and not by direct suffrage.

Summary:

Proceedings were initiated by a group of members of parliament, claiming that the legislation amending and supplementing the Local Self-Government and Local Administration Act and the Local Elections Act was unconstitutional, and seeking a ruling as to its conformity with the European Charter of Local Self-Government. The new legislation provides that district mayors in cities and deputy mayors in municipalities with less than 500 inhabitants are to be elected by the municipal council and not by direct suffrage.

The Constitutional Court found that the public participated in municipal management through the local self-government body - the municipal council - which they elected directly. While direct election of the council by local residents was mandatory, the mayor, under the local self-government system, was an executive authority. The Constitution gave the legislator power to determine how mayors were to be elected - by direct suffrage or by vote of the municipal council. The inhabitants of a district were also inhabitants of the municipality, and exercised their voting rights fully by electing the council, which then elected the mayor of a district or the deputy mayor of a small municipality. Their votes determined the majority on the council, and this then had implications for the choice of district mayor or deputy mayor.

Concerning the new legislation's conformity with the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the Constitutional Court noted that, under the Charter, the right of local self-government was "exercised by councils or assemblies composed of members freely elected by secret ballot on the basis of direct, equal, universal suffrage, and which may possess executive organs responsible to them", and that these conditions were satisfied in the case under consideration.

The Constitutional Court dismissed the application.