GERB Party Refers to Constitutional Court in Relation to the Istanbul Convention

The centre-right GERB party, a majority partner in the ruling coalition, said on 31^st if January, that they would refer to the Constitutional Court in order to seek a ruling on whether the Istanbul Convention was in conflict with the Bulgarian Constitution or not.

One of the important issues is whether the Convention complies with an article from the Constitution which defines marriage as a voluntary union between a man and a woman.

If the Constitutional Court finds that the Convention is contrary to the texts of the Basic Law, there are two options for the Parliament: to either keep the constitution unchanged and not ratify the Convention or to undertake a procedure for changing the Constitution and ratify the Convention.

The opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), who insisted on a referendum on the issue, explained that it maintains its demand for holding a referendum about whether or not Bulgaria should ratify the Convention, but with a revised question.They propose to change the question of the referendum into: “Are you against the Parliament’s ratifying of the Istanbul Convention? “ They say that they have wrongly considered the previous version in which they asked “Do you support the ratification of the Convention?”