The Constitutional Court declared inadmissible the application of a group of Communist MPs, who asked to determine the constitutionality of the President’s decree of September 26, 2023 by which Alexandr Stoianoglo was dismissed from the position of prosecutor general, IPN reports.
The authors of the complaint said the contested decree runs counter to a number of provisions of the Constitution, which refer to the pre-eminence of the law, separation and cooperation of powers, free access to justice, presumption of innocence, quality of the law, right to defense, entry into force of the law, etc.
With regard to some of the mentioned constitutional norms, the Court noted that the authors of the complaint did not argue to what extent the contested decree affects them. The mere reference to a text of the Constitution, without explaining the alleged non-conformity of the challenged legal provisions, does not amount to an argument.
As for the constitutional provisions regarding the presumption of innocence, the Court did not find in the decree by which Alexandr Stoianoglo was dismissed from office any provision regarding a possible guilt of the former prosecutor general. For that reason, the Court rejected that part of the complaint.
The Court also noted that the Constitution does not stipulate the existence of a discretionary margin when the President receives the Superior Council of Prosecutors’ proposal regarding the dismissal of the prosecutor general. This discretionary margin exists only in the case of examination of candidates for the position of judge, proposed by the Superior Council of Magistracy, when the head of state can reject only once the candidate proposed by the SCM. This President’s competence cannot be extrapolated to other cases, including the dismissal of the prosecutor general. Therefore, if the CSP proposes the dismissal of the prosecutor general for objective reasons and under a transparent procedure, the President is obliged to order his dismissal from office.
The Constitutional Court’s decision is final, cannot be appealed, enters into force on the date of adoption and is published in the Official Gazette.
In May 2022, the Superior Council of Prosecutors proposed that the head of state should dismiss Alexandr Stoianoglo from the position of prosecutor general after a responsible commission assessed his work as unsatisfactory. In September 2023, the President signed the dismissal decree. Meanwhile, Alexandr Stoianoglo won the case at the European Court of Human Rights in one of the two complaints filed. More specifically, the ECHR found the violation of the right to a tribunal, namely the right to challenge the decision of the Superior Council of Prosecutors of October 5, 2021 as a result of which was suspended from office. In November 203, the Constitutional Court declared unconstitutional the article on the basis of which Alexandr Stoianoglo was assessed as prosecutor general.
