DECISION No. 8 OF JUNE 6, 1996 ON CC No. 7/96
The Constitutional Court seized by the President of the Republic found anticonstitutional the provisions of Art. 34 items 1 and 2 and Art. 35 para 1 of the Law on the Administrative and Regional Organisation of the Republic of Bulgaria (LARORB) that create a procedure whereby to change the name of a community, respectively of an entity of national importance, a decree of the President shall be required but only after the Council of Ministers has proposed it.
As formulated in Art. 34 items 1 and 2 and Art. 35 para 1 of the LARORB the presidential power is conditional on the proposal of the Council of Ministers. Thus the law-maker makes this power conditional on the will of the supreme body of the Executive. Such legislative decision cannot be constitution-motivated.
The Council of Ministers is free to submit the proposal that a community be renamed to the Head of State, however, the Head of State shall be free to comply or not. Reversal would demean the Constitution-defined status of the Bulgarian Head of State and is directly in contravention to Art. 98 item 13 of the C.
The debate and vote do show that the real will of the Constitution writer when Art. 98 item 13 of the C. was written rules out the exercise of that presidential power on a condition.
