The Constitutional Court (CC) struck out from the legal peace the five and a half months during which Stanislav Todorov (nominated by "We continue the change") was the chairman of the Commission for Energy and Water Regulation (KEVR).

The court declared unconstitutional the decision of the National Assembly of February 9, 2022 on his election, but this does not simply mean that he will not be the chairman of KEVR in the future, but that he never was.

The reason for this is the new interpretation adopted two years ago by the Constitutional Court itself, according to which the declared unconstitutional decisions of the National Assembly are invalid from the moment they enter into force (more on interpretative decision No. 3/2020 of the Constitutional Court see here).

I.e.

in 2020, the constitutional judges gave retroactive effect to some of their acts, and the decision declaring unconstitutional the election of the KEVR chairman is one of them.

Thus, the consequence of today's pronouncement is that Stanislav Todorov was never at the head of the regulator.

He took office on February 10, 2022.

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The decision of the Constitutional Court "opens the door" to challenge decisions of the KEVR adopted after Todorov took office.

The commission consists of a chairman and four members, and its decisions are taken by a simple majority.

In addition, it sits in two bodies - "Energy" and "Water Supply and Sewerage".

Each of them includes the chairman and, respectively, the two members with experience in the field of energy or water supply and sanitation.

However, declaring Todorov's election unconstitutional does not mean that all KEVR decisions can be called into question, but possibly only those in which his vote was decisive for forming a majority - the members split 3 to 2 and he is was the third.

The SC has not yet announced its reasons, only that the decision was taken with 9 votes, and Sonia Yankulova signed it with a dissenting opinion.

However, in the request for the annulment of the decision to elect Todorov, GERB pointed out that it violated the principles of the rule of law, political pluralism and equality.

The reason for this is the amendments made after the opening of the procedure for electing the chairman of KEVR, which changed the definition of what constitutes "work experience in the field of energy" (see here for more on the arguments in the request).

GERB claim that, apart from the fact that it is inadmissible to change the rules in the course of a procedure that has already started, what happened prevented them from nominating their candidate.

Stanislav Todorov himself was constituted as an interested party in the case in the Supreme Court and presented evidence of his experience, as well as developed the view that there is no problem with the changes in requirements.

KEVR