Venice Commission Values Cooperation with Bulgaria's Constitutional Court

The Venice Commission values its cooperation with Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court, describing it as longstanding and significant, Eirik Holmøyvik, Vice-President of the Venice Commission, said in Sofia at an international conference marking the 35th anniversary of the establishment of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Holmøyvik noted that the Venice Commission had so far adopted 30 opinions and reports concerning Bulgaria, with another currently in preparation.

The Venice Commission shares the view that constitutional courts are the “guardians par excellence” of the rule of law. Indeed, the importance of constitutional justice is so great that the Commission included it as a separate benchmark in its updated 2025 Rule of Law Checklist. Constitutional justice remains a central element of constitutional democracy and a defining criterion of the rule of law, Holmøyvik added.

Video messages of congratulations on the anniversary were also delivered by Koen Lenaerts, President of the Court of Justice of the European Union, and Mattias Guyomar, President of the European Court of Human Rights.

Lenaerts said the anniversary was highly symbolic, as the establishment of the Constitutional Court was one of the events that marked Bulgaria’s pivotal democratic transition following the fall of the communist regime. He added that the Court’s review of the constitutionality of laws and other state acts during its early years had helped consolidate constitutional democracy in Bulgaria, paving the way for the country’s accession to the EU on 1 January 2007.

Mathias Guyomar said that the retreat from democracy, questions of fiscal and judicial independence, as well as technological progress or commercial processes developing faster than the regulations that can control them – all this requires national legal systems to adapt to new legal challenges in order to protect the various principles of the rule of law.

Before the conference’s working sessions began, greetings were also delivered by Alexander Kornezov, Judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union; Mariyana Kancheva, Judge at the General Court of the European Union; and Diana Kovatcheva, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights.